IQALUIT - Delegates from the circumpolar world were in Iqaluit last week for the Nunavut Language Summit which began in the city on Feb. 9.

Workshops were held at the Frobisher Inn all week to discuss ways to preserve and revive aboriginal languages.

"The Nunavut Language Summit will provide Inuit, anglophone and francophone communities, as well as other stakeholders, the opportunity to set priorities for the implementation of Nunavut's new language legislation," according to information from the department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth.

Minister of Languages Louis Tapardjuk will table the implementation plan for the Official Languages Act and the Inuit Protection Act in the legislative assembly this March.

"The summit is for the minister of languages to fulfil a legal requirement as per both the Official Languages Act and the Inuit Language Protection Act," Nunavut's languages commissioner Alexina Kublu said. "He has to do consultation with Nunavummiut and present a report to the legislative assembly by March of 2010 on the implementation plan of these two acts."

While protecting Inuit language is important, the summit is also focusing on ways to advocate the language, according to Kublu.

"We're also talking about revitalization of the Inuit language because it's not just the protection of the language, there is also the promotion of the language and revitalization," Kublu said.

Speakers from the circumpolar world, including Nunavut, Greenland, Nunavik and Alaska made presentations during the summit.

Carl Christian Olsen, executive director of Greenland's Language Secretariat, outlined the legislation behind Greenland's writing system.

"Even though we have diverse dialects, we have agreed in script to use the same language," Olsen said.

Greenland's writing system was standardized in the 1970s and is used by parliament and in court, he said.

Greenland also has a five-member language committee which approves and adopts words into the system.

While the writing system has been standardized, Greenlandic Inuit can still use their old writing system as well.

"By introducing a new writing system, we don't abolish the old one," Olsen said.

Kublu said Nunavut is hoping to learn from countries like Greenland about language legislation.

"That's why we have them here, to see what they have done and how they did it and what worked for them and what problems did they encounter and what difficulties did they have," she said.

During the summit, Iqaluit's Elijah Erkloo was selected to be chairperson of Uqausinginnik Taiguusiliuqtiit, the Inuit Language Authority, according to a press release.

Erkloo will work with Edna Elias from Kugluktuk as vice-chairperson.