Talk:Iñupiaq language

Move to Inupiaq language
The language is far more frequently referred to as "Inupiaq" than "Inupiat" --Naulagmi (talk) 00:18, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

help needed re origin of English word "nanook"
On University of Alaska Fairbanks there is a note that the athletic teams (named the Nanooks) derive this name from an Inupiaq word used for polar bear. Can anyone here help determine what the origin of this (English) word is and what it actually means? or at least rule out Inupiaq as the etymological source? The suggested etymology was nanuq. Deirdre 00:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The Inupiaq word for polar bear is indeed nanuq, so the note on the site is correct (and why shouldn't it?). — N-true 20:32, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The word is the same in other related languages where polar bears also live. I thought it was Canadian myself. However, stritcly speaking it is still correct to say it is from Inupiaq. and that was what we decided on Alaska Nanooks as well.— Soap — 20:02, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Inupiaq is not Inuktitut
Inupiaq (Alaskan Inuit) is not Inuktitut (Canadian Inuit) --Kmoksy (talk) 21:17, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

IPA for the language
It's good to see the IPA transcription for the Roman script used. However, it would be useful to have the symbols filled in a standard IPA chart so as to match their place and mode of articulation.

Also, the vowels are not well explained, nor the use of stress in the language, and what about double consonants/vowels: do they have to do with stress, timing, geminate pronunciation, etc? Can "ch" or "sr" as digraphs also be doubled (chch or srsr)???

EDIT: I just noticed on the Inupiak version of the page [f] is mentioned...is this an alophone of /v/ or which sound? dialectal? - It is an allophone of /v/ --Naulagmi (talk) 07:16, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

98.249.209.39 (talk) 02:02, 2 September 2010 (UTC)Tom

Requested move 4 March 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 11:52, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Inupiat language → Inupiaq language – Inupiat language is rarely used. Inupiaq language is the common name in English. Naulagmi (talk) 10:03, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment. There was a brief discussion back in 2010 that apparently led to the current title. – Uanfala (talk) 09:38, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that discussion link. There are a lot of fallacies that seem to have led to the decision to name this page Inupiat language. It seems they were trying to simplify by having a one-to-one correspondence between people and language pages. This would make sense for Yup'ik people/Yup'ik language, and probably most others. So it seems that the intent was to have a one-to-one correspondence between Inupiat people and Inupiat language. However, Inupiat is a plural noun (but is familiar to most English speakers too, like in the case of Inuit). You could also potentially argue to simplify by usingInupiaq people/Inupiaq languages. However, "Inupiaq people" sounds odd in English and Inupiaq, because Inupiat is the plural form in both Inupiaq and English. However, the singular form "Inupiaq" is used when referring to adjective in English: for example, Inupiaq dance, Inupiaq food, Inupiaq language. The name for the language is Inupiatun (like Inuktitut for Inuit), which has been gaining ground in recent years, but is not yet used by the majority of people. Here is a source from the Alaska Native Language Center showing the use of Inupiaq as a adjective (Note: This is for ENGLISH usage, not Inupiaq): "It can refer to a person of this group ("He is an Inupiaq") and can also be used as an adjective ("She is an Inupiaq woman"). The plural form of the noun is "Inupiat," referring to the people collectively ("the Inupiat of the North Slope").". Let me know if there are any questions, I realize that that was a long description of information. The main point is that the common usage in English is Inupiaq language and Inupiat people. --Naulagmi (talk) 10:27, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Suppport per comments above. Also, I'm seeing many more results (25 vs. 5) for Inupiaq than for Inupiat on LLBA (Proquest's linguistics database) and on google scholar (over 200 for Inupiaq language" vs. less than 100 for Inupiat language). – Uanfala (talk) 12:14, 5 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Which /i/ is the strong one, and which is the weak one? And is */e/ meant to be */ə/?
The current article text holds the following passage: "The Bering strait dialect has a forth vowel /e/, which preserves the fourth proto-Eskimo vowel reconstructed as */ə/. In the other dialects, proto-Eskimo */e/ has merged with the closed front vowel /i/. The merged /i/ is referred to as the “strong /i/”, which causes palatalization when preceding consonant clusters in the North Slope dialect (see section on palatalization below). The other /i/ is referred to as “the weak /i/”."


 * To me it is not clear whether the author intended "the merged /i/" to refer to "proto-Eskimo */ə/" or to (original) /i/.

Based solely on the wording of the text, I would guess that the merged /i/ originated in */ə/. If that were true, palatalization would then be associated with original */ə/, if my understanding of the subsequent text is correct. But as an avid reader of texts in linguistics and phonetics, I have come to think that palatalization is more likely to occur wit /i/ than with /ə/. Am I wrong here?


 * To me it is not clear whether the author wishes to mention two different "e"-like vowels of Proto-Eskimo.

Based on the wording, I would guess the answer is no. But based on the symbols employed, i.e. both /ə/ and /e/, I would say the answer is yes. Which of the two is it?

Which knowledgeable person can give the correct answer?Redav (talk) 00:26, 3 October 2020 (UTC)


 * */ə/ -> /i/ is the "weak" i, and /i/ -> /i/ is the "strong" i. Dr. Edna Maclean writes it as a capital "I" in her grammar to distinguish it sometimes. The schwa (only used in Diomede Inupiaq) is written as . 24.69.133.124 (talk) 04:15, 6 October 2020 (UTC)