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A World of Variety: Iñupiaq (Eskimo-Aleut)
Posted Tue, March 17, 2009 - 6:32 PM
language, nativeamerica
Extent of the Eskimo-Aleut language family
Iñupiaq (pr: In-yoo-pee-ock) is a language spoken in the far north of Alaska and the Yukon. It is one of the widely distributed Eskimo-Aleut languages, and lies near the western end of a dialect continuum that sweeps from Alaska east to Greenland.
Alaskool has a wonderful site preserving some stories told by Iñupiaq elders about Maniiḷaq - "known by people of the NANA region as a prophet sent from God." Unfortunately, the site asks you to install a special font if you want to read the full content. Here's a small portion of a story told by Charlie Aqpaliq Sheldon, transcribed as usual in Unicode.
Ikniġum Igliġutikkaŋa
Uvva aasriiñ una ukua uqautigianikkaluaġaat uvva imma iñuich. "Umiaq imma siḷakun igliqtuaq, ikniġum igliqtitaŋa, samma iḷasri usriaqsiġisirut taivrumani umiami. Tiŋmiruami iknikun, ikniġum igliġutikkaŋa." Sunauvva uvva tiŋmisuutit marra engine-nik igliġutilgich. "Iḷasri samma usriaqsiġaġisirut," taivrumani naalaġniriksraitchuq. Itna itnaġumiñaipiaqtut. Ukpiġiyuŋnaitchaat unniiñ. Taamna uqajiq uqautigikkaŋa taavruma marra taipchua aanaa iñuuqatai usriaqsiġaaniktut. Taimani aanaga una iñuuŋŋaġmi Maniiḷauramik tautuksimaruaq.
Fire Powered Vehicles
Although this has been mentioned by other people, I wish to include it. (He also said,) "There is a boat which travels through the sky and is powered by fire. This is what some of you will ride in some day, a boat powered by fire." As it turned out, he meant engine powered aircraft. "Some of you shall ride (in such vehicles.)" In those days, no one paid any attention to him. They simply could not take him seriously. As far as they knew, they would never do such a seemingly impossible thing. They could not even begin to believe him. Well, some of the people from mother's time did ride in such aircraft. Mother had actually seen Maniiḷauraq.
Unfortunately, their audio recordings appear to be off line at the moment. Hopefully they can get that fixed soon, as I'd like to hear how this sounds.