Something to keep in mind: Learning in Inuit communities relies heavily on oral histories and storytelling, therefore the literacy skills are not as imperative to learning.
Phonology
- Inuit speak Inuktitut which is written using their own alphabet in their culture. This symbolic alphabet consists of 59 symbols representing various phonological sounds of the English language.
- Decoding and recoding in English would be difficult because it would not be comparable to the Inuktitut language since the phonology of the alphabet includes sounds linked with vowels, and the English alphabet separates vowels and consonants.
- Important to note that each community has their own dialect further diversifying the phonology of the Inuktitut language.
Grammar
- Similar to vocabulary differences, Inuktitut requires less words to describe something. For example, snow that has been marked by wolves is simply tliyel. By having a language where words have multiple meanings means that learning English would be incredibly difficult in terms of understanding the grammar structure needed to translate that same meaning.
- On a similar note, articulation and intonation are incredibly important because in Inuktitut they are what distinguish between possessions, tenses, etc.
Spelling, Punctuation, and Vocabulary
- Most significantly, is that the Inuit use a symbolic alphabet (as shown above) so learning the English alphabet could be problematic (although chances are they have been exposed to it at some point). Therefore, spelling and punctuation would be incredibly different.
- Inuit have invented new words as new technology is invented.
- English is a noun based language, meaning that we learn objects and talk as if we possess them. In comparison, Inuktitut is a verb based language, meaning that they learn based on movement, relationships and connections. As an example, a man might introduce a woman as his "wife", with the understanding that they are in a relationship based on wedlock. In comparison, the Inuit term for wife would translate to "she who shares my soul". It is hard to teach nouns and verbs where they are so limited in meanings. Another example is that we say "its snowing out", but in Inuktitut there are over 50 words for snow, each specifying the type of snow. We choose to include adjectives rather than create new nouns in English.
No comments:
Post a Comment