Iqaluit (Sep 29/03) - English words are being used more often in Inuktitut conversations in Nunavut.

Nunavummiut are hearing these new words at home and in the schools every day.

While many accept it as a natural part of language growth and development, others, like Jonah Kilabuk in Panniqtuuq, have no time for it.

Kilabuk thinks the mix of English in Inuktitut speech is at the very least confusing for unilingual speakers, and at worst, harmful to the Inuktitut language itself.

"Oh no, no. It is not good," said Kilabuk from his home last week.

"If I was talking to you now in English and right in the middle I started..." and he paused, breaking into a string of Inuktitut words, "...you wouldn't understand that!"

Kilabuk has been an interpreter/translator for the territorial and federal governments for many years.

The younger generation's desire to throw English into Inuktitut sentences baffles him today.

"I have heard it, and I hear that a lot with reporters on the radio. And that's really bad."

Kilabuk has even called in to complain about this a few times.

The language mix doesn't give a person a taste of either world, he said.

Kilabuk has words of wisdom for young people who use the mix: "If you're going to speak in Inuktitut, speak in Inuktitut. Don't put anything in between. You might as well speak it all the way!"

Dinah Kavik lives in Sanikiluaq and spent five years teaching Inuktitut at the high school level.

She doesn't feel using a mix of English and Inuktitut is the end of the world for a student. She believes a flexible language style may even help a young person become engaged with Inuktitut.

"Having both languages helps build the vocabulary," she said. "I've always been told not to mix in English with Inuktitut, although I don't always do that!"

She said she has been told mixing "harms the language. But nowadays, when we're talking to teenagers especially, we have to mix in a little English because they don't understand what we're trying to tell them when we say it all in Inuktitut."

Parents not pleased

When Kavik taught at Nuiyak school in Sanikiluaq she used to tell her students just because it's an Inuktitut class doesn't mean it will all be in Inuktitut. This approach got her in trouble with some parents. "Some of the students would tell their parents I was teaching an Inuktitut class in English. But that's not it. It's just that it's the only way to get across to some students."

Jesse Apsaktun, 20, in Kugaaruk doesn't know what the big deal is.

When asked about language mixing, he laughed and said it is a common practice among people his age in Nunavut.

"Me and my friends do speak English and Inuktitut mix," he said with a laugh. "It makes sense to us, but if there's a person there who speaks only English they wouldn't understand it." For Apsaktun and his friends the combination of languages, or switching back and forth between them, is a matter of comfort more than anything.

"The words I don't know in English I'll say in Inuktitut. Most people my age do that."

Gwen Ohokak in Cambridge Bay is one of Nunavut's Inuinnaqtun speakers, the native language of the central Arctic.

She started her translation business Angulaalik & Associates in 1999 and has a different perspective on the trend of blending languages.

"One of the things I find working in languages is language is always evolving," she said softly.

"I don't think it helps the language," she said on Wednesday when asked about the mix, "but I wouldn't say it is a bad thing."

Ohokak said language mixing is all around us if we look and listen closely enough. It is natural that Inuit people exposed to English language will use English words to illustrate a point, she said, or explain something in a different way.

But Jonah Kilabuk will never back down on his Inuktitut stance.

"Our culture is our language," he said. "It's important to preserve it. That's why it's very important for people to speak in Inuktitut. That's part of our culture right there," he said.

"There is no other language like it in the world."