WEBVTT
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Language: en

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I'm at the Eureka weather station in Nunavut,

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in the Canadian High Arctic, about 80 degrees
north.

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Here they provide weather reports not just
for the Arctic,

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but for the transatlantic flights high above
it.

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Because we're in Nunavut, there are three
official languages here:

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English, French, and the local language: Inuktitut.

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Although it’s difficult to be exact about
languages in the Arctic:

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the line between dialects and languages gets
blurred,

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people in different areas can understand some
of people say.

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Like most languages here, Inuktitut is polysynthetic,

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which means that something that needs a whole
sentence in English

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can just be one long word,

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with each part affecting all the others.

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Now, in Greenland, similar languages are written
using the Latin alphabet,

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but the words can seem unwieldy to English-speakers.

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The Latin alphabet is a writing system that
evolved for a completely different language,

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one with lots of short words and spaces.

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But there is an alternative,

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it's used all round northern Canada,

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and to my eyes, it’s really cool.

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A bit of history: the reason this writing
system exists is because

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it was invented by Christian missionaries
who were trying to spread the gospel.

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The first books printed in Inuktitut were
extracts from the Bible.

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I’ve put some links in the description to
provide some context there, but:

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there’s no way I can cover that in a short
video that’s mostly about linguistics.

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First up: this is not an alphabet.

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In an alphabet, vowels and consonants both
have letters,

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which makes sense when you’ve speaking a
language

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with a lot of complicated combinations of
sounds in it.

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But Inuktitut, like a lot of polysynthetic
languages,

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has a relatively simple syllable structure:
with rare exceptions,

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the maximum you can have in a syllable is

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a consonant, some vowels, and then another
consonant.

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That is it, that is all your options.

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A long, English one-syllable word like “scratched”
wouldn’t work here:

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you need to put vowels in those consonant
clusters.

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You need se-ce-ra-te-ched.

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Long vowels being written with two letters,

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that's also added to the long words,

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so the Latin alphabet gets a bit overwhelmed.

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But the Inuktitut script is not an alphabet.

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It is an abugida.

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Each symbol represents both a consonant and
a vowel.

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The shape of the symbol tells you the consonant,
and here is the clever part:

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the direction it's pointing tells you the
vowel.

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And if it’s got a dot above it,

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it’s a long vowel, like aa instead of a.

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I’m not going to get the vowels exactly
right, I’m English.

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And if there’s a little symbol, up afterwards,

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you add another consonant at the end.

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So my name, Tom, would be like this:

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the curve shape means T,

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it's pointing to the right, which means “u”,

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the closest you can get to an o here,

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and the right angle at the end means a closing
M.

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Tum.

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If your accent's different,

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you might transcribe it a little differently,

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you might flip the curve the other way.

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Tam.

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And if you're American,

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you'd add a little dot there for a long vowel.

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Taam.

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So here is a simple word in Inuktitut: anaana.

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Mother.

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Like almost every language in the world,

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the word for mom is a sound that a baby will
make accidentally.

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Sorry parents, it was probably an accident.

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A triangle means no consonant,

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and pointed left always means a simple “a”.

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Next, that shape means “n”, pointing left
means “a”,

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and the dot means long.

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“naa”.

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Then the same again, without the dot. “na”.

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Annana.

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The word for father is ataata.

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Swap those spools out for the curve,

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the T from Tom, and there you go.

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Ataata.

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And yes, of course it’s more complicated
than this,

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I’m literally speaking baby talk,

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but compare this to the Latin alphabet

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where there's just arbitrary symbols that
you have to learn.

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There’s design here.

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There's intent.

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There isn't complicated letters with unwritten
rules that all influence each other.

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This is an easy script to learn,

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and for an endangered language with only about
30,000 fluent speakers?

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That is a really good attribute to have.

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I'm here thanks to Chris Hadfield's Generator
Arctic, and so are these two!

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-- I'm Norm from Tested.
-- And I'm Joey from Tested.

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-- And we're here shooting a bunch of educational
videos as well.

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You can find those at youtube.com/testedcom

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Links are in the description or on screen
now!