Culture and language are inseparable. But the culture of the North is especially oral, having been passed on since the beginning of time. 

There are 8 official
languages spoken in the NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

(For your info the Yuit language is generally called Yupik)

The Inupiaq dialects have more than 40,000 speakers in Greenland and more than 20,000 in Alaska and Canada. Yupik languages are spoken by about 17,000 people, including some 1000 in the former Soviet Union. These various languages are used for the first year of school in some parts of Siberia, for religious instruction and education in schools under Inuit control in Alaska, and in schools and communications media in Canada and Greenland. Inuktitut is now also one of 3 official languages in the new Canadian territory of NUNAVUT.

The Inupiaq and Yupik languages have an immense number of suffixes that are added to a smaller number of root words. A root word can give rise to many derivative words, often many syllables long and highly specialized in meaning, and sometimes complex enough to serve as an entire sentence. Qimuksiit (which means "Dogs and people traveling together as a unit) is a good example!

Because these languages are among the most complex and difficult in the world, few explorers or traders have learned them; instead, they relied on a jargon composed of Danish, Spanish, Hawaiian, and Inupiaq and Yupik words. The Inupiaq and Yupik languages themselves have a rich oral literature. The first book in Inupiaq was published in 1742

USEFUL PHRASES

English

Inuktitut

Pronunciation