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Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
A special evening was held at the Sakku building earlier this month to launch the compact disc, which includes traditional and game songs, tongue twisters and Inuit legends.
The project cost $50,000 to complete, with funding coming from the KIA-administered Aboriginal Language Initiative, which aims to promote, preserve, enhance and revitalize aboriginal languages.
KIA social development co-ordinator Bernadette Dean says for the first three years of the initiative, most of the language money went towards Inuktitut instruction in schools.
Initiative funding paid for teaching positions and creating Inuktitut language resource materials.
Dean says a number of elders wanted traditional material recorded for children to learn.
She says everything the group recorded is in archives, and the material on the CD promotes Inuktitut and bathes youth in the language.
"No matter what language you're trying to learn, you have to hear it and speak it in order to learn it," says Dean.
"To bathe children in a language, which we hope the CD will do, is an effective way to learn it."
Elders were flown into Rankin from around the Kivalliq to record the CD at the Maani Ulujuk middle school library. It took one week to record and 500 copies were produced.
A number of youth also perform on the CD, including Kandace Kusugak, Reanna Sateana, Tapia Tattuinee, Goretti Panika, Susie Manernaluk and Charlene Tasseor.
Copies will be sent to every school in the Kivalliq, as well as local radio stations.
Dean says the feedback she's received on the project since its release has been all positive.
"Lots of people wanted to buy the CD, but I had to tell them the KIA is a non-profit organization and they're for promotional purposes only.
Everyone understands what the CDs are being used for and supports the project, even if they can't buy one for themselves."
