About Inuktitut

ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᓕᕆᓂᐅᑉ ᒥᑦᓵᓄᑦ

Inuit are a people who live in communities along the Arctic coastline, stretching from eastern Siberia to the east coast of Greenland.  This vast area is known as Inuit Nunaat or the Inuit homeland.

The language that Inuit speak evolved through centuries of interaction between Inuit communities and the Arctic environment. It expresses precisely the knowledge, skills and wisdom developed by countless generations.There is incredible diversity within Inuit Nunaat in terms of its wildlife, climate and landscape.  This diversity is reflected in the Inuit Language with its spectrum of dialects that vary considerably from one end of the Arctic to the other.

In 1999, a new territory was created in Canada where 85 percent of the population are Inuit.  Here, the Inuit Language is known as Inuktitut, except in the communities of Qurluqtuq (Kugluktuk) and Iqaluktuuttiaq (Cambridge Bay) where they call the language Inuinnaqtun.

Today, with jet travel and satellite communications Inuit speaking different dialects are in much closer contact with one another.  Inuit living in Greenland, Alaska, and the four Inuit regions in Canada are working on ways to make communicating easier across the range of dialects.

Explore the following pages to learn more about the Inuit Language.