Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Arctic Languages in Canada in the Age of Globalization

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities

Abstract

This chapter examines local, regional, national, and global influences on Arctic languages. It adopts a multipronged approach, taking into account the different languages spoken, the social and linguistic context of the Arctic, and the challenges faced by Inuit with regard to linguistic, cultural, and environmental sustainability. The chapter presents a survey of research, political developments, and language policy, and an analysis of Arctic languages in an era of economic, political, and environmental transformations. Questions that are addressed include the nature of the forces currently shaping the Arctic language context; the ways in which the Inuit have been working to counter trends of language endangerment; and the ways in which language intersects with political and economic developments in the changing Arctic.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 189.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    In August 2016, one of the first cruise ships, carrying over 1000 passengers, sailed through the Northwest Passage, stopping at a number of Inuit communities. See McKie (2016).

  2. 2.

    Such as the internationally negotiated Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001).

  3. 3.

    This exploration has included seismic testing that the Inuit have challenged in the courts.

    See Skura (2016).

  4. 4.

    The Arctic Council states include Canada, Denmark, and the politically aligned but self-governing Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat) and the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and the USA (Alaska).

  5. 5.

    The Inuit population is growing. These population figures are according to the national Inuit organization, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK); see ITK (2018).

  6. 6.

    The Atlas is published online; see Moseley (2010).

  7. 7.

    For early treatments of this issue, see also Haugen (1966), Mühlhäusler (1996), and Simons and Fennig (2018).

  8. 8.

    Metis are commonly defined as a mixed people of European and Indigenous descent, and more specifically, those people who are descended from the western Canadian prairie settlement region of the Red River, near Winnipeg, Manitoba.

  9. 9.

    Although it is important to note that Inuit were subject to restrictive settler colonial administrative measures, including a numerical identification system, or “Eskimo disc numbers.” These small, round discs were distributed in 1941 (to be worn or sewn into clothing) and were used for identification purposes until the early 1970s, when surnames were introduced. See Library and Archives Canada (2018).

  10. 10.

    See Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015).

  11. 11.

    The same claim was made by the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures (2005), as discussed in Patrick (2007, p. 49).

  12. 12.

    This policy was announced in Canadian news media, including the Globe and Mail; see Galloway (2016).

  13. 13.

    The name Nunavik (meaning roughly “land-place”) gained currency in Arctic Quebec since the signing of the 1975 land-claim agreement, the first land claim or modern treaty since 1921. Nunavut (“our land”), became an official territory as a result of the Nunavut Land Claim in 1999.

  14. 14.

    The 1975 land claim also gave Inuit control over health services and other institutional spheres that were unprecedented at the time in Canada (Watt-Cloutier 2015).

  15. 15.

    For example, in February 2012, La Presse, a Montreal French-language daily reported that Quebec Inuit graduation rates of 17.8% are well below the 72.3% rate for the rest of Québec. An English translation of this article appears as Breton (2012).

  16. 16.

    The report addresses the failures in implementing the land claim, with an emphasis on the need for more Inuit employment in the territory’s civil service and for greater efforts to maintain and use Inuktitut in Nunavut. See Berger (2006).

  17. 17.

    See Cloutier (2012). The Uqausivut plan is available at Government of Nunavut (2012).

  18. 18.

    An ITK task force has held consultations on unifying the writing system for Inuktut across the four regions of Inuit Nunangat. See Rogers (2015).

  19. 19.

    Worth noting is that the specific changes to current systems that will figure in the single system will affect speakers in all regions; speakers in Nunavik and certain parts of Nunavut will face particular challenges, given that the syllabic systems currently in use and valued in these regions would be replaced.

  20. 20.

    The film is widely available on the Internet, including at University of Prince Edward Island/Nunavut (n.d.).

  21. 21.

    See, for example, Watson (n.d.).

References

  • Backhouse, C. (1999). Race Definition Run Amuck: “Slaying the Dragon of Eskimo Status”. In Re Eskimos, 1939. Colour-Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada, 1900–1950 (pp. 18–55). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barman, J. (1986). Separate and Unequal: Indian and White Girls in All Hallows School, 1884–1920. In J. Barman, Y. Hebert, & D. McCaskill (Eds.), Indian Education in Canada: The Legacy (Vol. 1, pp. 110–131). Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger, T. (2006, March 1). Conciliator’s Final Report. “The Nunavut Project”, 2006. http://www.aadncaandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100030982/1100100030985. Accessed 12 Mar 2017.

  • Breton. (2012, March 2). The Inuit Tragedy: Nunavik Drops Out. Nunatsiaq News.www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674the_inuit_tragedy_nunavik_drops_out/. Accessed 12 Mar 2017.

  • Budach, G., Patrick, D., & Mackay, T. (2015). “Talk Around Objects”: Designing Trajectories of Belonging in an Urban Inuit Community. Social Semiotics, 25(4), 446–464.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byers, M. (2014). Cold Peace, Arctic Cooperative and Canadian Foreign Policy. In K. Battarbee & J. E. Fossum (Eds.), The Arctic Contested (pp. 107–120). Brussels: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chrisjohn, R. D., & Young, S. L. (1997). The Circle Game: Shadows and Substance in the Indian Residential School Experience in Canada. Penticton: Theytus Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cloutier, S. (2013). UQAUSIVUT: Our Language Implementing Made-in-Nunavut Language Legislation. In M.-J. Norris, D. Patrick, & N. Ostler (Eds.), Proceedings from the XVII Foundation of Endangered Languages Conference (pp. 12–15). Ottawa: Carleton University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coulthard, G. S. (2014). Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cram, J. (1985). Northern Teachers for Northern Schools: An Inuit Teacher-Training Program. McGill Journal of Education, 20(2), 113–131.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diveky, G. (1992). The Thirty-Year Turnaround: A Teacher’s View of Changing Educational and Language Policies in the N.W.T. In N. Grabum & R. lutzi-Mitchell (Eds.), Proceedings of the Conference: Language and Educational Policy in the North, Berkeley, California (pp. 87–101).

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorais, L.-J. (2006a). Inuit Discourse and Identity after the Advent of Nunavut. Unpublished Research Report. Québec: Centre interuniversitaire d’études et de recherches autochtones, Université Laval.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorais, L.-J. (2006b). Discours et identité à Iqaluit après l’avènement du Nunavut. Études/Inuit/Studies, 30(2), 163–189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dorais, L.-J. (2010). The Language of the Inuit: Syntax, Semantics, and Society in the Arctic. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorais, L.-J. (2012). Linguistic Markets and Minority Languages: Some Inuit Examples. In L.-J. Dorais & F. Laugrand (Eds.), Linguistic and Cultural Encounters in the Arctic: Essays in Memory of Susan Sammons (pp. 39–48). Québec: Éditions du CIÉRA, Université Laval.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorais, L.-J., & Sammons, S. (2000). Discourse and Identity in the Baffin Region. Arctic Anthropology, 37(2), 92–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorais, L.-J., & Sammons, S. (2002). Language in Nunavut. Discourse and Identity in the Baffin Region. Iqaluit/Québec: Nunavut Arctic College and GÉTIC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorian, N. C. (1995). Small Languages and Small Language Communities. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 114, 129–137.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorian, N. C. (2014). Small-Language Fates and Prospects: Lessons of Persistence and Change from Endangered Languages. Collected Essays. Leiden: Brill.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Duchêne, A., & Heller, M. (Eds.). (2007). Discourses of Endangerment: Interest and Ideology in the Defence of Languages. London: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edelman, M., & Haugerud, A. (2007). Development. In D. Nugent & J. Vincent (Eds.), A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics (pp. 86–106). Malden: Blackwell Publishing.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Freeland, J., & Patrick, D. (2004). Introduction. In J. Freeland & D. Patrick (Eds.), Language Rights and Language Survival: Sociocultural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives (pp. 1–34). Manchester: St. Jerome Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Galloway. (2016, December 6). Trudeau Reassures First Nations of Commitment to Deliver on Promises. The Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/trudeau-announces-indigenous-languages-act-at-afn-assembly/article33215626/. Accessed 24 Mar 2018.

  • Giddens, A. (2003). Runaway World: How Globalization Is Shaping Our Lives. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Government of Nunavut. (2016). UQAUSIVUT: The Comprehensive Plan Pursuant to the Official Languages Act and the Inuit Language Protection Act 2012–2016. http://www.ch.gov.nu.ca/en/Uqausivut.pdf. Accessed 25 Mar 2018.

  • Haque, E., & Patrick, D. (2015). Indigenous Languages and the Racial Hierarchisation of Language Policy in Canada. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 36(1), 27–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haugen, E. (1966). Dialect, Language, Nation. American Anthropologist, 68(6), 922–935.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hobart, C. W., & Brant, C. S. (1966). Eskimo Education, Danish and Canadian: A Comparison. Canadian Review of Anthropology and Sociology, 3, 47–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hot, A. (2008). Un bilinguisme stable est-il possible à Iqaluit? Études/Inuit/Studies, 32(1), 117–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hot, A. (2012). Reading and Writing the Inuit Language in Iqaluit and Igloolik: Conclusions of a Qualitative Research Project. In L.-J. Dorais & F. Laugrand (Eds.), Linguistic and Cultural Encounters in the Arctic: Essays in Memory of Susan Sammons (pp. 49–56). Québec: Éditions du CIÉRA, Université Laval.

    Google Scholar 

  • Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada. (2018). Inuit. https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100014187/1100100014191. Accessed 24 Mar 2018.

  • Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada. (2016). About ICC. http://www.inuitcircumpolar.com/. Accessed 24 Mar 2018.

  • ITK. (2018). Who We Are. https://itk.ca/national-voice-for-communities-in-the-canadian-arctic/. Accessed 24 Mar 2018.

  • Kuptana, R. (2014). Indigenous Peoples in Canada: Politics, Policy and Human Rights-Based Approaches to Development and Relationship-Building. Public lecture, Trent University, Peterborough. https://www.facebook.com/notes/10152653528630909/. Accessed 24 Mar 2018.

  • Ladner, K., & Dick, C. (2008). Out of the Fires of Hell: Globalization as a Solution to Decolonization. Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 23, 63–91.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lawrence, B. (2004). “Real” Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood. Vancouver: UBC Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Library and Archives Canada. (2018). The Inuit: Disc Numbers and Project Surname. https://thediscoverblog.com/?s=inuit+discandsubmit=Search. Accessed 24 Mar 2018.

  • McGrew, A. (1992). A Global Society? In S. Hall, D. Held, & T. McGrew (Eds.), Modernity and Its Futures (pp. 61–116). Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKie, R. (2016, August 21). Inuit Fear They Will Be Overwhelmed as “Extinction Tourism” Descends on Arctic. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/20/inuit-arctic-ecosystem-extinction-tourism-crystal-serenity. Accessed 4 Mar 2017.

  • Miller, J. R. (2000). Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: A History of Indian White Relations in Canada (3rd ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Milloy, J. S. (1999). A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Modiano, N. (1973). Indian Education in the Chiapas Highlands. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moseley, C. (Ed.). (2010). Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/. Accessed 24 Mar 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muehlmann, S. (2012). Von Humboldt’s Parrot and the Countdown of Last Speakers in the Colorado Delta. Language and Communication, 32, 160–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mühlhäusler, P. (1996). Language Change and Linguistic Imperialism in the Pacific Region. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norris, M. J. (2007). Aboriginal Languages in Canada: Emerging Trends and Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, D. (2003). Language, Politics and Social Interaction in an Inuit Community. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, D. (2007). Indigenous Language Endangerment and the Unfinished Business of Nation-States. In M. Heller & A. Duchêne (Eds.), Discourses of Endangerment: Interest and Ideology in the Defence of Languages (pp. 35–56). London: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, D. (2016). Indigenizing Language Policy in Canada: Redressing Racial Hierarchies. In G. Lane-Mercier, D. Merkle, & J. Koustas (Eds.), Plurilinguisme et pluriculturalisme (pp. 125–138). Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, D., & Budach, G. (2014). Urban-Rural Dynamics and Indigenous Urbanization: The Case of Inuit Language Use in Ottawa. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 13, 236–253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, D., Budach, G., & Muckpaloo, I. (2013). Multiliteracies and Family Language Policy in an Urban Inuit Community. Language Policy, 12(1), 47–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, D., Murasugi, K., & Palluq-Cloutier, J. (2017a). Standardization of Inuit Languages in Canada. In P. Lane, J. Costa, & H. De Korne (Eds.), Standardizing Minority Languages: Competing Ideologies of Authority and Authenticity in the Global Periphery (pp. 135–153). New York: Taylor and Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, D., & Shearwood, P. (1999). The Roots of Inuktitut Bilingual Education. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 19, 249–262.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, D., Shaer, B., & Budach, G. (2017b). Language and Territorialization: Food Consumption and the Creation of Urban Indigenous Space. Semiotic Review 5. https://www.semioticreview.com/ojs/index.php/sr/article/view/8. Accessed 25 Mar 2018.

  • Pietikäinen, S., Kelly-Holmes, H., Jaffe, A., & Coupland, N. (2016). Sociolinguistics from the Periphery: Small Languages in New Circumstances. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Regan, P. (2011). Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling and Reconciliation in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, S. (2015, August 12). ITK Gears Up for Iqaluit Language Summit: Cross-Country Consultations Show Inuit Favour Roman Orthography. Nunatsiaq News. http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674itk_gears_up_for_iqaluit_language_summit/. Accessed 12 Mar 2017.

  • Rowan, M. C. (2014). Co-constructing Early Childhood Programs Nourished by Inuit Worldviews. Études/Inuit/Studies, 38(1–2), 73–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rowan, M. C. (2015). Thinking with Land, Water, Ice and Snow: A Proposal for Inuit Nunangat Pedagogy in the Canadian Arctic. In V. Pacini-Ketchabaw & A. Taylor (Eds.), Unsettling the Colonialist Places and Spaces of Early Childhood Education (pp. 198–218). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shearwood, P. (2001). Inuit Identity and Literacy in a Nunavut Community. Etudes/Inuit/Studies, 25(1–2), 295–307.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simon, M. (2014). Canadian Inuit: Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going. In K. Battarbee & J. E. Fossum (Eds.), The Arctic Contested (pp. 177–189). Brussels: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (Eds.). (2018). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (21st ed.). Dallas: SIL International. http://www.ethnologue.com. Accessed 24 Mar 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skura, E. (2016, November 29). “We Thought No One Care”: Clyde River Inuit Flooded with Support. CBC News. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/supreme-court-indigenous-duty-to-consult-clyde-river-seismic-testing-1.3873059. Accessed 3 Mar 2017.

  • Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. (2001). 2256 UNTS 119; 40 ILM 532. http://chm.pops.int/TheConvention/Overview/tabid/3351/. Accessed 25 Mar 2018.

  • Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures. (2005). Towards a New Beginning: A Foundational Report for a Strategy to Revitalize First Nation, Inuit and Métis Languages and Cultures. Ottawa: Minister of Canadian Heritage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomiak, J. (2017). Contesting the Settler City: Indigenous Self-Determination, New Urban Reserves, and the Neoliberalization of Colonialism. Antipode, 49(4), 928–945.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Calls to Action. http://nctr.ca/assets/reports/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf. Accessed 25 Mar 2018.

  • Tulloch, S. (2004). Inuktitut and Inuit Youth: Language Attitudes as a Basis for Language Planning. PhD Thesis, Université Laval, Québec.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tulloch, S., Pilakapsi, Q., Uluqsi, G., Kusugak, A., Chenier, C., Ziegler, A., & Crockatt, K. (2012). Impacts of Non-formal, Culturally-Based Learning Programs in Nunavut. In L.-J. Dorais & F. Laugrand (Eds.), Linguistic and Cultural Encounters in the Arctic: Essays in Memory of Susan Sammons. Québec: Éditions du CIÉRA, Université Laval.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tulloch, S., Kusuguk, A., Chenier, C., Pilakapsi, Q., Uluqsi, G., & Walton, F. (2017). Transformational Bilingual Learning: Re-engaging Marginalized Learners Through Language, Culture, Community and Identity. Canadian Modern Language Review, 73(4), 438–462.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turner, D. (2006). This Is Not a Peace Pipe: Towards a Critical Indigenous Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO. (1953). The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education. Paris: UNESCO.

    Google Scholar 

  • Urla, J. (1993). Cultural Politics in an Age of Statistics: Numbers, Nations, and the Making of Basque Identity. American Ethnologist, 20(4), 818–843.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walton, F., & Wheatley, K. (Producer), Sandiford, M. (Director). (2012). Millie’s Dream: Revitalizing Inuinnaqtun. A Documentary Video. Charlottetown: University of Prince Edward Island.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, M. K. (n.d.). Nipivut Radio Show. http://anthro.edublogs.org/nipivut/. Accessed 24 Mar 2018.

  • Watt-Cloutier, S. (2015). The Right to Be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet. Toronto: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Donna Patrick

Authors
  1. Donna Patrick
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Donna Patrick .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Gabrielle Hogan-Brun

  2. Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

    Bernadette O’Rourke

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Patrick, D. (2019). Arctic Languages in Canada in the Age of Globalization. In: Hogan-Brun, G., O’Rourke, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54066-9_10

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54066-9_10

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-54065-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-54066-9

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation