'Reinforces the legitimacy of our language': Inuktitut officially available on Facebook desktop
CBC
Inuktitut is now an available language setting on Facebook's desktop website.
The initiative is the result of a joint partnership that started over four years ago between Meta, Facebook's parent company, and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI). It's meant to promote the daily use of the Inuit language spoken in communities across Nunavut, a news release issued on Friday reads.
The translations were led by the Pirurvik Centre, an Inuit-owned learning centre based in Iqaluit.
The news release also says the launch "aligns with the United Nations International Decade of Indigenous Languages."
"Inuit expect to see and hear Inuktut in all aspects of our lives. Recognizing Inuktitut as an official language on Facebook, equal to English and French, reinforces the legitimacy of our language," said Aluki Kotierk, president of NTI, in a statement.
"Being able to access Facebook in our own language is an important and concrete step towards seeing and hearing Inuktut in all aspects of our lives."
Jeela Palluq-Cloutier told CBC News how she helped with the translation of the Facebook interface.
She said there were some difficulties at first, including trying to find the right translation, a task community members provided assistance with.
"Because not everybody uses a standard orthography, and not everybody uses the standard spelling. So what the community was bringing in was not the standard that we need to have on Facebook," she said.
"So that part was a little more difficult than easy."
Some of the terms used were pulled from the early 2000s, when new terms were created for the Microsoft interface translations, Palluq-Cloutier said.
Among those terms is the word "internet" which the Inuktitut version is rooted in a traditional word used by shaman who would spiritually check in on other communities.
"The idea of leaving your body, you're in a trance or a shaman in a trance … to go look at another community to go see … how that other community is doing, whether they're thriving or starving, or they need help," Palluq-Cloutier said.
"So exactly the same idea [for internet]. You're sitting at your home, you're on the computer, you can log on, and then you can find out what's happening in China."
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