[LINK] "Inuit seek to fix language split, to forge common identity with Roman alphabet"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Allan Woods describes how Canadian Inuit are moving towards a common writing system, one that involves dropping the syllabary.

For Canadian Inuit leaders, creating a unified written language system out of 12 dialects and two existing writing systems, one word is proving more important than the rest.

“Asijjiiniaqtut” — roughly translated as “give and take.”

That’s because everyone is having to compromise in order to progress toward an agreed-upon code that can be conveyed by someone in the western Arctic village of Tuktoyaktuk and understood in Clyde River on the eastern coast of Baffin Island, or written in the northernmost Nunavut village, Grise Fiord, and read in the Quebec community of Kuujjuaq.

[. . .]

Christian missionaries arrived long ago in the eastern Arctic with a system of syllabic writing — the Inuit script we still use today, using triangles, humps, dots and squiggly lines — while a Roman writing system took hold in the western Arctic. About a century later, the federal government tried and failed to institute a single system based on the Roman alphabet.

In the ensuing years there were attempts to standardize the two systems, but they were adopted by some and resisted by others. Advocates of a unified system say the status quo hinders communication between far-flung communities, affects the quality of the education system and limits Inuit access to jobs.

“Inuit have always functioned as one, but because of the government system invisible borders have divided us,” said Jeannie Arreak-Kullualik, a member of the Atausiq Inuktut Titirausiq task force that is consulting on the changes.

“We’re trying to unify so that we can eliminate those barriers because we all have the same challenges, which is to keep our language and culture alive and get more education for our children.”