- published: 23 Jan 2014
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- author: DS Bigham
Following standard notation, phonemes are written between two slashes, e.g. /p/; and phonetic transcriptions are written between square brackets, e.g. [ɬ].
This article is about the phonology of the Inuit language. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Inuktitut dialects of Canada.
Most dialects have fifteen consonants and three vowel qualities (with phonemic length distinctions for each). While the Inupiatun and Qawiaraq dialects have retroflex consonants, retroflexes have otherwise disappeared in all the Canadian and Greenlandic dialects.
Almost all dialects of Inuktitut have only three basic vowels and make a phonemic distinction between short and long vowels. In Inuujingajut (the standard alphabet of Nunavut) long vowels are written as a double vowel.
In western Alaska, Qawiaraq and to some degree the Malimiutun variant of Inupiatun retains an additional vowel which was present in proto-Inuit and is still present in Yupik, but which has become /i/ or sometimes /a/ in all other dialects. Thus, the common Inuktitut word for water – imiq – is emeq (/əməq/) in Qawiaraq. (L.D. Kaplan, Arctic languages: an awakening, pg. 145)
The Inuit (Inuktitut: ᐃᓄᐃᑦ, "People") are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Greenland, Canada, the United States, and Russia. Inuit is a collective noun; the singular is "Inuk". The Inuit language is grouped under the Eskimo-Aleut family.
In the United States, the term Eskimo is commonly used in reference to these groups, because it includes both of Alaska's Yupik and Inupiat peoples while "Inuit" is not proper or accepted as a term for the Inupiat. No collective term exists for both peoples other than "Eskimo". However, natives in Canada and Greenland view the name as pejorative and "Inuit" has become more common. In Canada, sections 25 and 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 named the "Inuit" as a distinctive group of aboriginal Canadians who are not included under either the First Nations or the Métis.
The Inuit live throughout most of the Canadian Arctic and subarctic in the territory of Nunavut; "Nunavik" in the northern third of Quebec; "Nunatsiavut" and "Nunatukavut" in Labrador; and in various parts of the Northwest Territories, particularly around the Arctic Ocean. These areas are known in Inuktitut as the "Inuit Nunangat". In the United States, Inupiat live on the North Slope in Alaska and on Little Diomede Island. In Russia, they live on Big Diomede Island. The Kalaallit and other natives of Greenland are the descendants of migrations from Canada and are citizens of Denmark, although not of the European Union.
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