Arctic Languages

The Arctic Indigenous Languages Assessment Symposium was held in Ottawa, Ontario February 10-12. Sponsored by the Arctic Council, this meeting culminates several years of work by stakeholders from across the Arctic. There are representatives from Greenland, Norway, Finland, Canada, US, and Russia. Languages represented include Unangan, Yupik, Iñupiaq, Inuktitut, Gwich'in, Tłı̨chǫ, Kalaallisut, Saami, and more. I have been very fortunate to be able to participate in this symposium and to hear from a diverse range of speakers from across the Arctic.

Perhaps the strongest argument for bringing Arctic Languages together is shared linguistic history. This if most clear for the language known variously as Iñupiaq, Inuktitut, and Kalaallisut. Whether one considers these as dialects of the same languages or simply closely related language varieties, it is clear that these speech forms share a common origins. Inuit people settled the high arctic, generally west to east, carrying their language and culture with them. And yet as Larry Kaplan pointed out in his presentation, the differences between the Iñupiaq language situation in Alaska and the Kalaallisut situation in Greenland could hardly be more different.

Iñupiaq	Kalaallisut
rarely heard in public	language of daily communication
limited instruction	language of schooling
not used in workplace	often used in workplace
few child learners	learned by all Greenlandic children
moribund	actively expanding (slang, etc.)

So as Greenlanders worry about whether a particular slang term should be added to the dictionary, Iñupiaq in Alaska worry whether any kids will even use a Iñupiaq word, slang or not. These are both language issues, but they hardly seem comparable.

Further complicating the issues with the language of the Inuit is that lack of a standardized writing system across the Arctic. More than a dozen different writing systems are in use, some using Latin characters and others using syllabics.

To a certain extent the language situation in Greenland shares more in common with Hawaii than with other arctic languages. Both Greenland and Hawaii have a single Indigenous population and language, permitting a focus on a single language.

So, what if we look beyond the Inuit language(s) in the Arctic? Well, we can certainly identify similarities between different arctic language situations, say, between Saami and Gwich'in, or between Tłı̨chǫ and Unangan. But are these similarities due to them being "arctic" languages? Or are they due to them being endangered minority languages? Many of the challenges are not particularly northern. The effects of rapid urbanization and explicit policies of language suppression contribute to continued pressure to shift toward colonial languages. This is true not only across the Arctic, but in North America and most other parts of the world where minority languages fight for survival in a world dominated by just a few large languages of wider communication. On the face of it there seems to be nothing special about the Arctic as a language area. It is difficult to see what arctic languages share other than geography and climate.

Youth representatives at the Arctic Indigenous
Languages Assessment Symposium

It was the youth who showed us the unity in arctic languages. Throughout the Arctic Languages Symposium a group of youth representatives from across the Arctic had been meeting on their own to discuss their own attitudes and opinions regarding the issues the linguists and policy makers were struggling with in the larger meeting. On the last afternoon of the symposium the youth representatives reported back to the larger group. As they stood together reading their report and outlining their vision it became clear that at least in the eyes of these visionary youth, arctic languages do share a common cultural and social bond which unites them across political and linguistic boundaries. They listed several concrete suggestions, including a desire to create a repository of traditional stories and legends, so that this cultural and linguistic history could be preserved and accessible. But what struck me as most significant was that they spoke with one voice.  Inuit, Yup'ik, Unangan, Saami, Greenlanders. It is easy to underestimate the common bond of the North. These youth and their vision are evidence that is useful for arctic peoples to work together to strengthen arctic languages.

Now the chair of the Arctic Council rotates to the US. Let's hope that under US leadership the Council will continue to address the problems of language loss in the Arctic.