Language policy in Nunavut and Inuktut language loss
Presenter(s)
Affiliation
Topic
Bottom-up and top-down language policy and planning
Type
Papers
Abstract
After decades of negotiations between the Canadian government and the Indigenous peoples in the north of Canada, Nunavut was created in 1999 through the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement which included negotiations around issues of land, resources, employment, education and language. Now over 25 years since the agreement was signed, there is growing Indigenous language loss for Inuit school children in Nunavut; all of which reflect the ongoing colonial relations between the federal government and the Inuit.
In a territory where 86% of the population is Indigenous and a majority of the population speaks an Indigenous language as a mother tongue, the Nunavut Official Languages Act (2013) recognizes English, French and the Inuit language (hereafter referred to as Inuktut) equally as the official languages of Nunavut. However, even with such a density of first language Inuktut speakers, language loss is proceeding at an alarming pace. According to Statistics Canada data from 2021, about 53 per cent of Nunavut's population identified Inuktut as a mother-tongue, compared to 65 per cent in 2016 and 72 per cent in 2001. This loss is underwritten by the Education policy in Nunavut, specifically the medium of instruction for K-12 schooling.
In this paper, I want to examine how the evolution of language in education policy in Nunavut from the 1999 land claims agreement, through the original Education Act (2008) to the Education Act passed in late 2020 which pushed back the phasing in of Inuktut as the language of instruction by 20 years to 2039 have all contributed to Inuktut language loss in Nunavut. I want to argue that any language policy in Nunavut that does not prioritize Inuktut over English and French, which are the 2 official languages of the federal government of Canada, will only serve to hasten of Inuktut language loss in Nunavut.
