Inuit Sign Language project

Project

My PhD project started in September 2008, and is entitled "Typological aspects of Inuit Sign Language (Canada)". This project aims to document aspects of the sign language used by the Inuit of Nunavut, Canada's Arctic territory (see map). Nunavut means 'our land' in Inuktitut, the spoken language of the Inuit. Nunavut is about 50 times the size of the Netherlands, though a lot less populated: about 31,500 people live in the 25 communities.

Inuit Sign Language is highly endangered by American Sign Language. Only a few decades ago, deaf Inuit children were sent to schools for the deaf in English-speaking Canada. Nowadays, children go to school with an ASL interpreter. The situation deafInuit encounter is bilingual,as English and Inuktitut are both usedby their hearing relatives. Deaf Inuit use a rangeof sign languages or sign systems: ASL is used as well as Manual Coded English, and of course Inuit Sign Language.

The focus for this project will be on handshapes, verb agreement and classifiers (or: locus and gender agreement). Also, the semantic fields of kinship, colour, number and time will be investigated. The findings will be set against the sociolinguistic situation in Nunavut, and compared to other sign languages and to Inuktitut.

Map (c) atlas.nrcan.gc.ca

Fieldwork

As the language is used in Arctic Canada, the project entails fieldwork. In 2009, March and April were spent in Rankin Inlet and Baker Lake. The climate in these months was certainly Arctic. The temperature at the beginning of March was -35 Celsius, but the wind chill made it drop down about twenty degrees. In April, Spring arrived and the temperature was around a mild -10 Celsius. The experience of spending these months in the Arctic was very special; temperatures like that are difficult to imagine, and seeing a land that is really flat and really white, was a unique experience.
In 2010, fieldwork was conducted in May and June. I could clearly see that this last winter was milder than last year's: there is much more road visible than last year. I also visited the hamlet of Taloyoak in August 2010, and it was very nice to see a new town and meet new people. Summer in the Arctic is very different than winter, though the views remain spectacular.

ELDP

For the fieldwork trips in 2010 and 2012, I have receivedan Individual Graduate Studentship from the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme. 

HRELP.org

Previous work on Inuit SL

Dr. Jamie MacDougall of McGill University, Montréal has been documenting the oral history of deaf Inuit, as well as putting together some vocabulary booklets. This work lead to the recognition of Inuit Sign Language and American Sign Language by the Nunavut Department of Culture, Elders, Language and Youth (see link, page 9).

Nunavut Hansard, Sept. 16

Last updated: 17-04-2012