Learn Inuttitut: Writing — Introduction

For every language’s writing system, the writing system has a history and its own properties. This is because a writing system is a tool for representing how we talk and people borrow that tool from other languages. That is why the exact same language can have more than one writing system. That is also why the same symbol can sound differently in another language.

The English writing system is based on Roman letters but uses them in its own way. The letter i, which is pronounced like bee in French and Spanish, is pronounced in English like bit, unless there is an e at the end of the word, in which case it is pronounced bite (not ee sound but more like ai). The English writing system does not closely connect spelling and actual pronunciation. As a result, English speakers just have to memorize silent letters, like in the word palm. English speakers also live with the fact that the exact same sound can appear with different letters (i.e. sky tie site [all the ai sound]). One benefit of the English system, however, is that different English pronunciations in different dialects are all written the same way.

The Labrador Inuit Standardized Writing System was introduced in the school system in the 1980s and is based on, but different from, the older Moravian system. In contrast to the English writing system, it is closely connected to actual pronunciation (like Spanish is closely connected to its writing system). This means that memorization is greatly reduced. Spelling should not be an issue if you know how it works. You write what you say or hear. You pronounce it as it is written. Where the English system takes a few years to learn because of the memorization, the LISWS system can be learned in a few weeks. You don’t have to learn how to spell each word once you learn the system, but you do have to be able to hear well what the speaker is saying. Sometimes this is easier if you ask the speaker to say the word slowly.

So for the LISWS a learner should simply write what they hear. A fluent speaker should write what they say.

Sometimes there happen to be two ways of writing what you hear. For example, the long ng sound is usually written ng (i.e. ng underlined). Others write it ngng. Other Inuit dialects write this sound nng. The nng is more simple to type and you can use it on Facebook, etc. more easily. The important thing is to make sure you write single ng one way and double ng another way.

The Inuit language makes an important distinction between single and double consonants and vowels. This difference is not found in English. We will go over the single consonants and single and double vowels, which are pretty straightforward and then we will go over double consonants and mixed consonants.