At the rate of 1% per year in Nunavut, Inuktut is being lost. I have seen it personally in my own family. I am the oldest of seven children. The older members of my family speak Inuktut. My younger siblings don't.
Two years ago, I went to the homeland of my father. He took us where he grew up, not in the community, on the land. He said to me, “Aluki, come with me so you can be my interpreter.” Then he sighed and said very quietly to my own children....
When I hear and talk about language legislation, it is a matter of life and death when people are unable to get services in the health system. It is being killed by the school system when 75% of the teachers are non-Inuktut speaking teachers in our schools. When there are 43 schools, one school is a French school funded by the federal government.
We wonder why Inuit are not as bitter or as angry as they should be when they see the inequities in their homelands where their children are being taught in English.