In 2020, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the period between 2022 and 2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL 2022-2032) to “draw global attention to the critical situation of many Indigenous languages and to mobilize stakeholders and resources for their preservation, revitalization, and promotion” (https://www.unesco.org/en/decades/indigenous-languages). To celebrate this initiative, Études Inuit Studies invited us to guest-edit a thematic issue on “the Inuit languages,” a topic to be understood here as including all forms of speech ancestral to the Inuit and Yupik peoples, from the Kalaallisut dialects of Greenland to the numerous varieties of Canadian Inuktut and Alaskan Iñupiatun, as well as to the Yupik languages of southwestern Alaska and easternmost Russian Chukotka. We decided that instead of discussing issues of “preservation” and “revitalization,” as the UN proclamation appeared to suggest, it would be more positive and nearer to the current views of a majority of Inuit and Yupik communities to ask would-be contributors to relate concrete reflections and initiatives that pertain to understanding and strengthening the immediate future of the Inuit languages. We envisioned articles and research notes that would deal with topics relevant to current developments in the social and cultural status of these languages, rather than with structural phonology, grammar, and lexicology, or highly technical methodologies. Papers on language change, semantics, and historical linguistics could be included, provided that they contributed to a better understanding of how Inuit interact with contemporary society through their worldview and/or their use of language. As much as possible, the topics submitted for discussion were to be presented from the perspective of local Inuit communities, rather than reflecting scholarly viewpoints detached from Indigenous concerns. To achieve this, native speakers were encouraged to contribute to the issue as authors or co-authors and, if the authors wished to do so, to provide recorded audio/video materials conveying local opinions and testimonies on various aspects of the Inuit languages. A list of topics we considered relevant to our theme was thus circulated through various channels, among researchers, professionals, and activists concerned about language questions in Inuit Nunangat. The list included the following suggestions: These suggestions covered a very wide range and of course, only some of them have made their way into the papers actually submitted. However, as we shall see, the eight texts appearing in the thematic section of this issue address several points enumerated above, and this from different disciplinary, geographical, and epistemic perspectives. We chose to open the thematic section with a rather unusual contribution: “Kontakion for Mick Departed” by Iain MacDhômhnaill de Chlann Raghnaill, a.k.a. John MacDonald of Clanranald, retired coordinator of the Igloolik (Nunavut) Research Centre. It is a respectful, though sometimes humorous poem in memory of S. T. Mick Mallon (1933–2023), who played a leading role in the 1970s and 1980s in several initiatives aimed at enhancing Inuktitut, thus setting the scene for contemporary social and educational efforts involving the Inuit language in Canada. The poem mentions the work of the Inuit Language Commission on orthographic reform, the concurrent development of the IBM Selectric typewriter element to accommodate a revised syllabic font, and a series of interpreter-translator colloquia to devise Inuktitut neologisms (words for newly-introduced objects and concepts). MacDhômhnaill’s “Kontakion” is followed by a comprehensive analysis of the linguistic impact of colonialism in the Canadian Arctic: “Protecting Inuit Language and Culture in Inuit Nunangat: Taking Agency to Decolonize Education.” Author Natasha MacDonald, a Nunavik Inuk scholar teaching at McGill University, shows that in order to reverse language shift and ensure the future of Inuktitut, the entire education system needs to be decolonized by way of a …
