The Inuktitut Bible

The Bible has been translated into almost 500 languages.  Last year (2012) saw the completion of the first translation of the entire Bible into Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit people.  The translation was performed by native Inuktitut speakers rather than European or American missionaries.

Rather than being a literal translation, the Inuktitut Bible is based on "functional equivalence."  The Bible uses the nineteenth century syllabic script introduced by the Anglican missionary Edmund Peck.  The script gave a written form to the ancient language.

Hallelujah for These Children!

(Some videos will not play properly when you click on the triangle.  Instead,  click on the title line in the picture and the video will begin.  When the video is completed, close the You Tube pop-up window to return to this blog.)

I had to post this wonderful video from the Kuinerrarmiut Elitnaurviat 5th Grade students in Quinhagak (Kuinerraq in the Yup'ik language), Alaska (USA).  These are Yup'ik people (you probably would call them Eskimos, but they do not like that word).  There are about 16,900 speakers of Yup'ik, which is as different from its sister language,Yupik, as Spanish is from French.  The word Yup'ik comes from "yuk" = "person" plus "Pik" = "real."

Quinhagak is a fishing and canning village and had a permanent population of 555 as of the 2000 census.  The name means "new river channel."  The village has been proven to have existed since at least 1000 AD/CE.

These are poor but proud, hard-working people.  From the video, it looks like almost the entire village helped in the production of this wonderful statement.  I especially love the girls spinning at 2:04 and the very cold girl at 2:32.

Amazing Grace in Inuit

The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada (Northwest Territories, Nunatsiavut, Nunavik, Nunavut, Nunatukavut), Denmark (Greenland), Russia (Siberia) and the United States (Alaska). Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language.  Inuit people prefer not to be called "Eskimoes."

The Inuit live throughout most of the Canadian Arctic and subarctic: in the territory of Nunavut ("our land"); the northern third of Quebec, in an area called Nunavik ("place to live"); the coastal region of Labrador, in areas called Nunatsiavut ("our beautiful land") and Nunatukavut ("Our Ancient Land"); in various parts of the Northwest Territories, mainly on the coast of the Arctic Ocean and formerly in the Yukon. Collectively these areas are known as Inuit Nunangat.

In the US, Alaskan Inupiat live on the North Slope of Alaska and Siberian Coast, Little Diomede Island and Big Diomede Island. Greenland's Kalaallit are citizens of Denmark.  There are about 150,000 Inuit today.