Natsilingmiutut

Natsilik
Nattiliŋmiutut
Native to	Canada
Region	North America
Ethnicity	Netsilik Inuit
Language family	Eskimo–Aleut Eskimo Inuit Inuktitut Natsilik
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	nets1241
Inuit dialects. (Broader) Netsilik is the dark green in the center.
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Netsilik /ˌnɛtˈsɪlɪk/,^[1] Natsilik, Nattilik, Netsilingmiut, Natsilingmiutut,^[2] Nattilingmiutut,^[3] Nattiliŋmiutut^[4] is an Inuit language variety spoken in western Nunavut, Canada by Netsilik Inuit.

Natsilingmiut (ᓇᑦᓯᓕᖕᒥᐅᑦ "people from Natsilik") came from natsik “seal” + postbase -lik “place with something” + postbase -miut “inhabitants of”.

Classification[]

• There are three main dialect divisions of Natsilingmiutut dialect:
  • subdialect, or Natsilik/Netsilik proper
  • subdialect
  • subdialect

Special letters[]

Natsilik dialect has the special letters: š ř ŋ

These letters are used by some Nattiliŋmiut speakers to write in their dialect.^[5]

š [ʂ] – sounds a bit like English "shr" and is distinct from both the s sound that is used in words borrowed from English and the more common h sound.

ᐅᖅᓱᖅᑑᖅ Uqšuqtuuq Gjoa Haven

ᒥᒃᓵᓄᑦ mikšaanut about

ᓯᒃᓯᒃ hikšik ground squirrel, marmot

New encodings are proposed for the Inuktitut syllabics corresponding to š and h in Unicode.^[6] These 12 syllabic characters for Nattilingmiutut were accepted by the Unicode Technical Committee for encoding on 6 October 2020 at UTC #165. On 14 September 2021, the 12 Nattilik syllabic characters to represent the š and h were included in the release of version 14.0 of the Unicode Standard. These 12 syllabic characters are now formally part of the Unicode Standard and are stable to use for digital text exchange, however, updates to system level syllabics fonts and keyboards to access the characters are underway and forthcoming.

ř [ɟ]^{[citation needed]} (in Inuktitut syllabics ᖬ řa ᖨ ři ᖪ řu ᖭ řaa ᖩ řii ᖫ řuu) – sounds like an English (retroflex) r.^{[citation needed][this contradicts the IPA transcription]} It is distinct from the r sound used by other dialects, which is closer to the r [ʁ] sound made in French at the back of the throat.

ᐃᖨ iři eye (cf. Inuktitut ᐃᔨ iji)

ᐅᒡᖪᒃ ugřuk bearded seal (cf. Inuktitut ᐅᒡᔪᒃ ugjuq)

ᑭᐅᖪᖅ kiuřuq s/he replies, answers (cf. Inuktitut ᑭᐅᔪᖅ kiujuq)

ᐊᐱᕆᖪᖅ apiriřuq s/he asks (cf. Inuktitut ᐊᐱᕆᔪᖅ apirijuq)

ŋ – A small number of Inuktitut-speakers use this character instead of ng. The use of ng is deceiving because it makes use of two letters to represent what is a single sound. In syllabics this sound is represented by a single character ᖕ.

Using this letter also makes the distinction between the sequence [nŋ] and long [ŋː] clearer, the first being spelled ‘nŋ’ (ᓐᖕ) and the latter ŋŋ (ᖖ). In eastern varieties of Inuktitut which do not have the sequence [nŋ], long [ŋː] is spelled nng (ᖖ) rather than ngng (ᖕᖕ).

When the letter ŋ is not used, the distinction may be made by spelling [nŋ] n'ng and [ŋː] nng.

ᐊᕕᓐᖓᖅ avinŋuaq (avin'nguaq) lemming

ᑭᙵᖅ kiŋŋaq (kinngaq) mountain

Comparison[]

References[]