Native to Canada Ethnicity Netsilik Inuit | Region North America Glottolog nets1241 | |
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Language family Eskimo–Aleut
Eskimo
Inuit
Inuvialuktun
Natsilik | ||
Netsilik /ˌnɛtˈsɪlɪk/, Natsilik,Nattilik, Netsilingmiut, Natsilingmiutut, Nattilingmiutut, Nattiliŋmiutut is a dialect of Inuvialuktun (Western Canadian Inuit or Inuktitut) language once spoken in the Nattilik area of Nunavut, Canada by Netsilik Inuit people.
Contents
Natsilingmiut (ᓇᑦᓯᓕᖕᒥᐅᑦ “people from Natsilik”) came from natsik “seal” + postbase -lik “place with something” + postbase -miut “inhabitants of”.
Classification
Special letters
Natsilik dialect has the special letters: š ř ŋ
These special characters are used by some Nattiliŋmiut speakers to document their dialect.
š [ʂ] – sounds like ‘shr’ and is distinct from both the s sound that is used in words borrowed from English and the more common h sound.
Uqšuqtuuq Gjoa Haven hikšik ground squirrel, marmot mikšaanut aboutř [ɟ] (in Inuktitut syllabics ᖬ řa ᖨ ři ᖪ řu ᖭ řaa ᖩ řii ᖫ řuu) – sounds like an English (retroflex) r. It is distinct from the r sound used by other dialects, which is closer to the r [ʁ] sound made in French at the back of the throat.
ᐃᖨ iři eye (cf. Inuktitut ᐃᔨ iji) ᐅᒡᖪᒃ ugřuk bearded seal (cf. Inuktitut ᐅᒡᔪᒃ ugjuq) ᑭᐅᖪᖅ kiuřuq s/he replies, answers (cf. Inuktitut ᑭᐅᔪᖅ kiujuq) ᐊᐱᕆᖪᖅ apiriřuq s/he asks (cf. Inuktitut ᐊᐱᕆᔪᖅ apirijuq)ŋ – A small number of Inuktitut speakers use this character instead of ng. The use of ng is deceiving because it makes use of two letters to represent what is actually a single sound. In syllabics this sound is represented by a single character ᖕ.
Using this letter also makes the distinction between the sequence [nŋ] and long [ŋː] clearer, the first being spelled ‘nŋ’ and the latter ‘ŋŋ’. In eastern varieties of Inuktitut which do not have the sequence [nŋ], long [ŋː] is spelled ‘nng’ rather than ‘ngng’.
When the letter ‘ŋ’ is not used, the distinction may be made by spelling [nŋ] ‘n'ng’ and [ŋː] ‘nng’.
avinŋuaq lemming kiŋŋaq mountain