Education

In my elementary and junior high school years in Igloolik, I was very fortunate to have strong Inuktut speaking teachers.

In grade nine, I was taught by Elizabeth (Liz) Apak how to spell properly using the ICI standard writing rules and I was quick to catch on as I was already well grounded with my language from home. Liz was an experienced Inuktut language teacher who went on to work for the Baffin Divisional Board of Education at the Teaching and Learning Center in Nunavut and later with the Curriculum and School Services Division of the Department of Education, Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT).

The teachers I had after the junior high school years were prominent language instructors and mentors such as Mary Cousins, Eva Aariak, Kathy Okpik, Monica Ittuksardjuat, Alexina Kublu, Mick Mallon, Louis-Jacques Dorais and Jose Kusugak.

Mary Cousins, who was involved with the Inuit Cultural Institute (ICI) reform in 1974, was my high school Inuktut teacher.

In the following year, Eva Aariak, who, in 2007 became the first Languages Commissioner of Nunavut, later won a seat as a Member of the Legislative Assembly, and then became Premier from 2008- 2013, was also my teacher.

In my last year at high school Kathy Okpik, who at this time is the Deputy Minister of Education, taught me and I became her teaching assistant. I excelled in all my Inuktut classes and was subsequently asked to teach the Inuktut classes right after my graduation from high school.

In my years attending the Nunavut Teacher Education Program (NTEP) at Nunavut Arctic College (NAC) to obtain my teaching diploma and Bachelor of Education (BEd) degree, I had the privilege of learning from experienced and skilled linguists; Monica Ittuksardjuat, Alexina Kublu, Mick Mallon and Louise-Jacques Dorais who all helped me to further understand the complexities of our language and the multiple dialects spoken across the north.

I give credit to every one of my guides, mentors and teachers who helped me to work in the field of language, as a teacher, interpreter, translator and now as a linguist.

Teaching

I have taught Inuktut for over twenty years to students from the early years in school to adulthood. As I mentioned, I started teaching at the age of 18 just after I had graduated from high school in 1989 when I was asked to assist the Inuktut teacher to teach grades seven to nine. In the following two years I taught grades ten to twelve. My role was that of a Classroom Assistant in the first year and a Language Specialist for the next two years.

I had already developed a keen interest in learning about the different dialects spoken in Nunavut from living at the Ukiivik residence where students from all over Nunavut, including the Kivalliq region, stayed while completing their high school education. Being exposed to hearing different dialects spoken during my high school years started my interest in studying Inuktut with all its variations. I was already thinking about the reasons the dialects varied and this preoccupation has become my work and passion since that time.

While I teaching at the high school in Iqaluit, I had students from North and South Baffin as well as from Sanikiluaq in my classes. Though I later taught using my own North Baffin dialect, I made sure that the speakers of other dialects felt included in that if there were variations in dialect, I would include them in my teaching and tried to help the students to understand how and why these differences were important, asking them if there were differences in spelling or difference in the way terms were used.

After obtaining my Bachelor of Education (BEd) at NTEP in 1994, I started teaching at the elementary levels from grade one to six. In my first two years of teaching I taught at Joamie School in Iqaluit, teaching all subjects in Inuktut to grades two and three, and then grades three and four. I then transferred to Igloolik to teach the grade one class and in the following year, grades five and six. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching at all these grade levels and using our Inuit language to ensure that students were provided with the best instruction that was possible given some limitations with respect to reading materials.

One year that stood out in my teaching experience was when I taught the grade one class in Igloolik. I was very aware that the first years of education set the foundation for the remaining years of schooling. My students came into my class speaking in Inuktut but with a minimal ability to read and write. They could write their names in Inuktitut and recognize their classmates’ names and that was just about the limit of their literacy levels.

I could see they were very eager to learn, and at that age they were like sponges ready to absorb anything. I decided to be creative in teaching them to recognize the syllabics.

They already knew how to sing the Inuktut syllabics song. Rather than continuing to sing the traditional song “i, pi, ti, ki… u, pu tu ku… a, pa, ta, ka…” I had them sing in different orders, while pointing out to each syllabic I had them sing, “i, u, a, pi, pu, pa, ti, tu, ta…” and from the bottom up, “łi, łu, ła, ngi, ngu, nga, qi, qu, qa..” and “łi, ngi, qi… łu, ngu, qu… ła, nga, qa…” I found in a very short time, they were connecting the symbols to the sounds.

Having learned the syllabics, I challenged the students to write their thoughts in their daily journals. They started out by writing simple sentences and by December the entries in their journals were written in paragraphs using punctuation marks. The parents and my colleagues were amazed at how quickly the students learned to read and write, but to me I was just giving the children the opportunity to express their abilities and talents. To me, it showed how capable they were of learning to become literate very quickly.

I moved to Ottawa from Igloolik in 1998 and started working for the Inuit Head Start program as a Parent Coordinator with Tungasuvvingat Inuit. Head Start is a pre-kindergarten program designed to encourage school readiness for First Nations, Metis and Inuit children in Canada. As a Parent Coordinator I delivered different programs and training courses for the parents of the enrolled children. Some of the training included the Nobody’s Perfect Parenting Course, Inuktut literacy, Social and Financial Skills training as well as offering cultural activities such as Inuit food preparation and making clothing such as parkas for the children and amautis for the mothers. Though I was new to southern living, I also helped parents who had just moved to Ottawa from Nunavut and the Northwest Territories to adjust to living in a city.

In 2001, I was fortunate to be selected for a teaching job at Nunavut Sivuniksavut (NS), a post-secondary college program for Nunavut students graduating from high school. I taught Inuit history, the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the Inuktut classes. I found myself once again having to teach students with different dialects, as well as students with different skill levels. Some students were very fluent speakers especially those from the Baffin communities but some young people were unable to speak in Inuktut. Drawing on my experience working at the high school in Iqaluit as well as in the dialectology courses I took while I was studying to become a teacher, I was able to deliver the Inuktut class using multiple dialects. Students really enjoyed learning about each other’s dialects and this encouraged them to speak to each other in Inuktut.

While living in Ottawa I also took a position at Carleton University teaching the Inuktut as a second language course. There were about 20 non-Inuit students enrolled in the course. I used a morphological and phonological approach in teaching. Students studying in different fields were interested in learning Inuktut. One student who stood out was very eager to learn with plans to move to Nunavut. After graduation he moved to Igloolik and used his basic understanding from the course and continued to learn to speak Inuktut. Another student who was working with the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada was working on a project where he was developing a computer application called Inuktitut Morphological Analyzer. This application allowed people to look up decomposed Inuktut words into morphemes, from noun and verb roots, suffixes and noun and verb endings.

Another work experience I accepted before moving back to Iqaluit was as a proof-reader for the Inuktitut magazine with ITK, formerly known as the Inuit Tapiriisat of Canada, a national Inuit organization. Jose Kusugak, who had taken part in the writing reform resulting with the ICI standard writing system for Nunavut, was the President at the time. I proof-read and translated articles as well as edited articles written first-hand in Inuktut. Zebedee Nungak from Nunavik was one of the Inuit writers who was hand-writing his articles in Inuktut and I would transcribe them for him. Though Nungak is from Nunavik and used a Kangirsuk dialect with a writing system that is non-ICI standard, he agreed that I could transcribe his work using the ICI writing system. Upon completing the transcription I would print and fax over the work to him. This was followed by a telephone meeting to review any issues before publication.

Pirurvik Center

I moved back to Iqaluit in the summer of 2005 and started working at the Pirurvik Center, a privately owned business working on Inuit culture, well-being and excellence in language. My role was as a translator, teaching materials developer and traditional terminologist. During the four years I worked at Pirurvik I was involved in many projects including translating the Microsoft interface to Inuktut, which at times was very challenging as we translated words that have never been considered before such as flash drive, internet, e-mail, format and so on. This work was very interesting as translations were coming from different dialects and traditional terms were being used to translate new and modern terminology. A few translations stood out as they were translated using the Arviat dialect, ikajuqti’naaq for the help icon, and, tuqquivi’naaq for flash drive. The glottal stop ’ is mainly used in the Kivalliq dialects with the ending –naaq. In the North and South Baffin dialects it would be written as ikajuqtiralaaq and tuqquiviralaaq. Translating the interface using roman orthography added to challenges of translating technological terminology. Opting to use the Kivalliq dialect in these two examples provided for one less character for the space provided. Internet was translated as ikiaqqivik which is a shamanistic word that has not been used since Christianity was introduced and shamanism was no longer practiced. Shamans had the ability to have an out-of-body experience, traveling to other camps in a trance to get news of how the people are doing. It was found fitting to use this term for the Internet as we can now, through the use of our computers, get news from all around the world without leaving our homes.

I helped with the development of Inuktut as a second-language teaching materials from the beginner to an advanced level. I also helped in developing and delivering Inuktut as a first- language courses ranging from Inuit Cultural Institute (ICI) standard spelling and grammar courses to Inuktut professional writing courses for Government employees. As a traditional terminologist I had the great privilege of working with Inuit Elders from different communities in the Baffin Region documenting themed terminology such as kinship, environment and weather, hunting and skinning, food preparation, qulliq, camping and Inuit societal values.

Inuit Uqausinginnik Taiguusiliuqtiit: The Inuit Language Authority in Nunavut

Until late January, 2013, I worked as a Linguist with the Inuit Uqausinginnik Taiguusiliuqtiit (IUT), the Inuit Language Authority, where I continued to study dialectal differences of the Inuit language from Alaska to Greenland. In the two years in this position, I was involved in symposia, conferences and meetings across Nunavut on language and education issues. The topic of Inuktut standardization was always brought up and discussed at length. While some people recognized the need to standardize Inuktut and were calling for change, some people remained hesitant about the idea thinking that standardizing the language would endanger or eliminate some spoken dialects. On several occasions I was asked to give presentations on dialectal differences and standardization of Inuktut, the most recent one with the Federation of Endangered Languages conference in Ottawa in the beginning of October 2013 (Palluq-Cloutier, 2013).

As an employee for the IUT’s education committee I held two meetings to collect themed terminology as requested by the committee. The first meeting was held in Iqaluit with participants from both North and South Baffin (Pond Inlet, Clyde River, and Qikiqtarjuaq). Terms related to the Qulliq, the stone lamp; Qamutiik, the sled; Qarmaq, the sod house; and Iglu the snow house were collected. I then held a meeting in the Qitirmiut region with participants from Kugluktuk, Gjoa Haven, Taloyoak and Cambridge Bay. Because of the different dialects spoken there could be more than one term for the same thing. When that was the case we recorded all the terms indicating the first term as the Baffin dialect and the second or third terms as the Qitirmiut dialects. For example, the terms for an abandoned iglu are igluvigaq, igluvikkaku and igluluarjuk. They all mean exactly the same thing but said differently from one region to another.

Working at IUT provided me with the opportunity to work directly with teachers, interpreters and language experts from all over Nunavut and abroad. I attended meetings with the Language Authority in Quebec and Greenland. I also attended national and international conferences and symposia on language issues including the Nunavut Teacher’s Conference in February 2012 (Palluq-Cloutier, 2012); the National Terminology Council in Ottawa; the Federal Terminology Council in Ottawa; Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami’s Round Table on Future Directions in Research in Inuit Education, the Linguistic Society of America’s Summer Institute Workshop on Sociolinguistic of Language Endangerment in Boulder, Colorado, and the Inuit Circumpolar Conferences’ Arctic Indigenous Languages meeting (Palluq-Cloutier, 2013). All these experiences provided me with a broader awareness and understanding of language issues, not only with Inuit in Nunavut but with respect to similar issues facing aboriginal and indigenous languages around the globe. These experiences have directed and prioritized my work and research for Inuktut in Nunavut.

From several of these meetings and symposia I was highly moved and influenced by the late Jose Kusugak’s vision and dreams for the survival and advancement of our language. Throughout his teaching and political career he always held Inuktut at the forefront of his priorities and was very vocal about the need for standardization starting from being involved with the language reform in 1974. Before his involvement with, the then, Inuit Tapiriisat of Canada (ITC) as an assistant to the President, Tagak Curley, and later with the Inuit Cultural Institute (ICI), he was an Inuktitut and Inuit history teacher in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, and Churchill, Manitoba at the Churchill Vocational Institute (CVC). After leaving the teaching profession he worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and later with the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) for over ten years. Jose then went on to the political arena when he was elected to be the President of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI) where he was responsible for negotiating the comprehensive land claim for Inuit in Nunavut, serving two terms as President. He was then appointed President of ITC. While at ITC, having understood the needs of all four Inuit regions in Canada, including the Inuvialuit, Nunavut, Nunavik and Labrador as they achieved land claims with their respective national, territorial, and provincial governments, he changed the name of the organization to Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) meaning that Inuit are united.

I knew of Jose Kusugak because of the important leadership roles he held throughout his life, but I only started hearing directly from him through the conferences and symposia he attended on language issues in Nunavut and abroad. I would very keenly listen to his presentations hanging on to every word, in total agreement with his thoughts and views on Inuktut issues and the importance of standardizing the language.

At the 2010 Nunavut Language Summit Jose likened the erosion of the Inuit language to a cultural “tsunami” or “earthquake” that everyone knows is coming but that no one is doing anything about. At the same summit he said, “Everything will come together if we agree on one standard language for writing. It is possible to have one dialect as a foundation, which ever dialect, we can use that dialect as a starting point, add to it as needed, it is as simple as that if people want it” (Personal comments made by Jose Kusugak, Nunavut Language Summit 2010). At a talk in the University of Ottawa in 2005 he was quoted, “If you develop a standard ‘Queen’s Inuktitut’ there are certain fundamentalists of the Inuktitut language that will not be happy no matter what you say, so you have to accept that. But I think we’re talking here about the survival of the language” (Kusugaq, 2010). Anytime Jose spoke at meetings and conferences about language use and loss, his passion came out strongly. I would come out of these meetings with a greater conviction and determination to see his dreams realized. His words validated my own dreams of what we need to be doing to see our language survive and thrive.

Another person I must mention is my husband, Stephane Cloutier. He is currently the Director of Official Languages with the Department of Culture and Heritage, Government of Nunavut. When I first met him twenty years ago, he was just starting to learn to speak Inuktut. He was very interested in the Inuit language and culture and he continues to learn. He has now become fluent enough to converse with unilingual Inuit. Because of his interest in learning the language he has not only given me the support I need in my field of studies and work, he has greatly contributed to where I am today in my studies related to the language. Together we have passionate discussions on linguistic issues in Nunavut and abroad. As a francophone having grown up in a small unilingual French community in Quebec and then learning to speak English at university, he is very aware of the need to fight to keep and maintain your mother tongue. His perspective on the history of Francophones in Québec and across Canada, including in Nunavut, fighting to keep their language in a minority situation have shown me the importance of the work we, Inuit, are doing for our language.

I have very recently taken a leave from my position with the Language Authority of Nunavut and moved back to Ottawa to accept a position with ITK that focuses on the Standardization of Inuktut as one of the priorities identified in the National Strategy on Inuit Education which reaches across all four regions of Inuit Nunangat. My research focusses on efforts to standardize Inuktut writing system in Nunavut, while the National Inuit organization is giving the same efforts to see a standardized writing system among all Inuit in Canada.

Summary

From my childhood, through my upbringing, my education and in the different roles I have held throughout my career I have always been interested in learning and expanding my language with all of its complexities and dialects. I have learned that providing feedback on language in either formal or informal learning from the early years and throughout educational experiences is very important, it helps build a solid language foundation. The feedback I received from my father, my grandmother, and my aunt helped me take inventory of the skills I have and identify where I needed to improve. In turn, I used that knowledge when I started teaching at the elementary level. Coupled with high expectations and confidence that the students were capable of excellence, I believe I was able to help them to succeed.

Everyone I have learned from and worked with over the years has strengthened the value that is based in a passionate love of language. In one way or another, everyone I mention in this chapter has either knowingly or unknowingly instilled in me the passion I carry today. I must mention that in particular, my father and Jose Kusugak gave me a deep understanding of the value of the language that must be continued and maintained. Sadly, Jose passed away in January 2011 before his dream to see the standardization of our language was achieved. I believe very strongly that his work and dreams must not be forgotten and that it now our turn as Inuit to continue his legacy.

This chapter which focuses on an autoethnographic account of my own story as a linguist, teacher, and language advocate has lead me to a point in my life where I am increasingly interested in researching and determining what we, as Inuit, need to be doing to provide a high quality education in Inuktut to all the children and young people in Nunavut. We need to find out what the attitudes are of teachers about dialects spoken within Nunavut and how they feel about standardization. My ultimate goal is to ensure that the Government of Nunavut and Inuit organizations have the data and information that could potentially lead to a collective decision on a common language for teaching materials across Nunavut. It is this quest that had led me to complete a Master of Education thesis on the topic of standardization of the language.