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|name=Inuktitut |nativename=ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ, Inuktitut, Inuttitut, Inuktitun, Inuinnaqtun, Inuttut, and other local names |familycolor=Eskimo-Aleut |states= Canada ( Nunavut , Nunavik , Northwest Territories , Nunatsiavut ) |speakers=approximately 30,000 |fam2= Inuit |nation= Nunavut , Nunavik , Northwest Territories , Nunatsiavut ( Canada ) |agency= Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and various other local instutions. |iso1=iu |iso2=iku |lc1=iku|ld1=Inuktitut (generic)|ll1=none |lc2=ike|ld2=Eastern Canadian Inuktitut |lc3=ikt|ld3=Western Canadian Inuktitut}} Inuktitut ( spoken in Canada . It is spoken in all areas north of the Tree-line , including parts of the provinces of Newfoundland And Labrador , Quebec and to some extent in northeastern Manitoba as well as the territories of Nunavut , the Northwest Territories and traditionally on the Arctic Ocean coast of Yukon . It is recognised as an official language in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories . It also has legal recognition in Nunavik - a part of Quebec - thanks in part to the James Bay And Northern Quebec Agreement , and is recognised in the Charter Of The French Language as the official language of instruction for Inuit school districts there. It also has some recognition in Nunatsiavut - the Inuit area in Labrador - following the ratification of its agreement with the Canadian federal government and the province of Newfoundland And Labrador . The Canadian census estimates that there are roughly 30,000 Inuktitut speakers in Canada, including roughly 200 who live regularly outside of traditionally Inuit lands. For more information on the relationship between Inuktitut and the Inuit languages spoken in Greenland and Alaska , see '' Inuit Language ''. Dialects and variants Northwest Territories and Yukon Inuit in Canada's Northwest Territories call themselves Inuvialuit and live primarily in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region , consisting of the northern part of the Mackenzie River delta, the arctic coast of the Northwest Territories and Yukon , Banks Island , a part of Victoria Island and some more remote and irregularly inhabited Arctic Ocean islands. The Inuit language variants of the NWT are often treated together as Inuvialuktun , but this categorisation is misleading. The Inuvialuit population encompasses three distinct dialects:
The Inuvialuktun dialects are seriously endangered, as English has in recent years become the common language of the community. Surveys of Inuktitut usage in the NWT vary, but all agree that usage is not vigorous. According to the ''Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre'', only some 10% of the roughly 4,000 Inuvialuit speak any form of Inuktitut, and only some 4% use it at home. {Link without Title} Statistics Canada 's 2001 Census report is only slightly better, reporting 765 self-identified Inuktitut speakers out of a self-reported Inuvialuit population of 3,905. Considering the large number of non-Inuit living in Inuvialuit areas and the lack of a single common dialect among the already reduced number of speakers, the future of the Inuit language in the NWT appears bleak. Nunavut Nunavut encompasses the geographically largest part of the Inuit world (not counting the uninhabitable Greenland ice shield), and includes large mainland areas and numerous islands divided by rivers, straits, Hudson Bay , and areas of ocean that freeze only for a part of the year. Consequently, it is unsurprising that it has a great deal of internal dialect diversity. Nunavut's basic law lists four official languages: English , French , Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun , but to what degree Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun can be thought of as separate languages is ambiguous in state policy. The word ''Inuktitut'' is often used to describe both. The demographic situation of Inuktitut is quite strong in Nunavut. Nunavut is the home of some 24,000 Inuit, most of whom - over 80% according to the 2001 census - speak Inuktitut, including some 3,500 people reported as monolinguals. 2001 census data shows that the use of Inuktitut, while lower among the young than the elderly, has stopped declining in Canada as a whole and may even be increasing in Nunavut.
Nunavik Quebec is home to roughly 12,000 Inuit, nearly all of whom live in Nunavik . According to the 2001 census, 90% of Quebec Inuit speak Inuktitut. The Nunavik dialect (Nunavimmiutitut) is relatively close to the South Baffin dialect, but not identical. Because of the political and physical boundary between Nunavik and Nunavut, Nunavik has separate government and educational institutions from those in the rest of the Inuktitut-speaking world, resulting in a growing standardisation of the local dialect as something separate from other forms of Inuktitut. In the Nunavik dialect, Inuktitut is called '''Inuttitut'''. This dialect is also sometimes called '''Tarramiutut''' or '''Taqramiutut'''. Nunatsiavut The Nunatsiavut dialect ( Nunatsiavummiutut , or often in government documents '''Labradorimiutut''') was once spoken across northern Labrador . It has a distinct writing system, created by German missionaries from the Moravian Church in Greenland in the 1760s . This separate writing tradition, and the remoteness of Nunatsiavut from other Inuit communities, has made it into a distinct dialect with a separate literary tradition. The Nunatsiavummiut call their language '''Inuttut'''. Although Nunatsiavut claims over 4,000 inhabitants of Inuit descent, only 550 reported Inuktitut to be their mother tongue in the 2001 census, mostly in the town of Nain . Inuktitut is seriously endangered in Labrador. Nunatsiavut also had a separate dialect reputedly much closer to western Inuktitut dialects, spoken in the area around Rigolet . According to news reports, in 1999 it had only three very elderly speakers. {Link without Title} Phonology and Phonetics ''See main article Inuit Language Phonology And Phonetics '' Eastern Canadian dialects of Inuktitut have fifteen s, voiced Continuant s and Nasals , as well as two additional sounds — voiceless Fricative s. Natsalingmiutut has an additional consonant , a vestige of the Retroflex consonants that were present in proto-Inuit. Inuinnaqtun has one fewer consonant, as and have merged into . All dialects of Inuktitut have only three basic vowels and make a phonological distinction between short and long forms of all vowels. In ''Inuujingajut'' - Nunavut standard Roman orthography - long vowels are written as a double vowel. Morphology and syntax ''See Inuit Language Morphology And Syntax for a detailed description specific to Nunavut Inuktitut.'' Inuktitut, like other and Polysynthetic Language ) All words begin with a root morpheme to which other morphemes are suffixed. Inuktitut has hundreds of distinct suffixes, in some dialects as many as 700. Fortunately for the learners, the language has a highly regular morphology. Although the rules are sometimes very complicated, they do not have exceptions in the sense that English and other Indo-European Languages do. Writing Inuktitut is written in several different ways, depending on the dialect and region, but also on historical and political factors. The first people to write Inuktitut were Moravian missionaires in Labrador , who developed a Roman alphabet writing scheme that they applied to Greenlandic and Labrador language which included the letter ''kra'' . The Greenlandic system has been substantially reformed in recent years, making Labrador writing unique to Nunatsiavummiutut at this time. Most Inuktitut in Nunavut and Nunavik is written using an scheme called Inuktitut Syllabics , based on Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics . The western part of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories use a Roman alphabet scheme usually identified as Inuinnaqtun , reflecting the predispositions of the missionaries who reached this area in the late 19th Century and early 20th . The Canadian syllabary ''See Inuktitut Syllabics for more information.'' The Inuktitut syllabary used in Canada is based on the Cree syllabary devised by the missionary James Evans . The present form of the syllabary for Canadian Inuktitut was adopted by the Inuit Cultural Institute in Canada in the 1970s . The Inuit in Alaska, the Inuvialuit , Inuinnaqtun speakers, and Inuit in Greenland and Labrador use the Roman alphabet, although it has been adapted for their use in different ways. Though conventionally called a Syllabary , the writing system has been classified by some observers as an Abugida , since syllables starting with the same consonant have related Glyph s rather than unrelated ones. All of the characters needed for the Inuktitut syllabary are available in the Unicode character repertoire. (See Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics Character Table .) The territorial government of Nunavut , Canada has developed a Truetype Font called ''Pigiarniq'' for computer displays. It was designed by Vancouver -based Tiro Typeworks. References
''Although as many of the examples as possible are novel or extracted from Inuktitut texts, some of the examples in this article are drawn from Introductory Inuktitut and '''Inuktitut Linguistics for Technocrats'''.'' External links Dictionaries and lexica Webpages
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