Eastern Canadian Inuktitut

Letters

Punctuation

Other

Vowel sounds

Consonant sounds

	labial	dental	alveolar	post- alveolar	palatal	velar	uvular	glottal
stop	p b	t			ɟ	k	q	ʔ
fricative	v		s ɬ			ɣ	ʁ	h
nasal	m		n			ŋ
approximant			l		j

Where eastern dialects (South Qikiqtaaluk) use s, eg.

ᑭᓴᐅᑦ

western dialects (Paallirmiutut) use h, eg.

ᑭᓴᖅ

In some foreign words western dialects may use the sound s, such as

ᓱᑲᖅ

and eastern dialects may use h,t eg.

ᕼᐋᑭᕐᕕᒃ

Several dialects replace phonemes with a glottal stop, ʔ, however the original phoneme it replaces varies from dialect to dialect,m eg.

ᑐᐱˈᒥ

Eastern dialects are more likely to collapse consonant clusters into geminated pairs. For example, compare these versions of the same word from western and eastern dialects, respectively:t

ᐅᑉᓛᖅ

ᐅᓪᓛᖅ

Speakers of North Qikiqtaaluk dialect, Nattilingmiutut, Aivilingmiutut and Pallirmiutut make the sound ɬ, eg. (North Qikiqtaaluk)

ᐊᒃᖢᓈᖅ

but other dialects don't have it in their phonetic repertoire, eg. (South Qikiqtaaluk)

ᐊᑦᑐᓈᖅ

and (Inuinnaqtun)

ᐊᒃᓱᓈᖅ

The b sound is only used in certain dialects, and almost always before l, eg. (Inuinnaqtun)

ᖃᑉᓗ

whereas elsewhere geminated sounds are common, eg. (South Qikiqtaaluk)

ᖃᓪᓗ

Tone

tbd

Structure

The following indicates the syllabic structure of Inuktitut syllables.m

(C)V(V)(C)

A VV sequence may consist of a long vowel, eg. ᐆᒪ or a sequence of 2 different vowels, eg. ᑕᐃᓇ There are usually never more than two consecutive vowels.m

Where a syllable with a closing consonant is followed by a syllable with an opening consonant, a cluster arises, eg. ᑐᒃᑐ Clusters are usually only 2 consonants in length. Special final consonant signs are used at the end of a syllable, or in other words at the beginning of a cluster.m

A single consonant in the middle of a word is the opening consonant of a syllable, eg. ᐊᐃᕕᖅ is composed of the syllables ai and viq.m

The sounds of consonants may change when they are part of a cluster due to phonetic rules that determine which consonant sounds can be together. This is particularly relevant when attaching morphemic suffixesm, eg. ᐃᓄᒃ + ᒧᑦ inᵘk + mᵘt inuk+mut to a person becomes ᐃᓄᖕᒧᑦ

For more details, see Inuktitut Linguistics for Technocrats. These sound changes are reflected in the written text.

Syllable summary table

The following table summarises the main syllable to character assigments.

The left-hand column shows the basic CV shapes only; vowel length and onset labialisation are shown using letters with the same basic shape but including dots (see following sections). The middle column shows some alphabetic characters. The right-hand column shows (non-syllabic) consonant codas.

Syllable composition

The core of the script is a set of V or CV syllables, and the superscripts used for syllable-final consonants.

Each consonant can be followed by one of 4 vowel sounds (though not all combinations exist). The vowel sound for a given syllable is indicated by the rotation of the basic glyph. The illustration below is based on the p consonant.

The basic set of syllable glyphs used for Inuktitut includes the following.

There is also a set of standalone vowel glyphs, which can be seen below, and some special glyphs for consonant clusters.

Three of the vowels have both short and long forms, the latter indicated by a dot diacritic. These are all single precomposed code points. They don't decompose.

Here is the complete set of syllables beginning with the sound p.

The last symbol just above is a superscript, usually visually similar to the -a syllable, which indicates a consonant sound without a following vowel. These glyphs are used for the syllable-final consonants, which occur in (C)VC sequences.

Pronunciations of words and their suffixes can vary from dialect to dialect but, with the exception of the s~h distinction, words are generally written as they are pronounced. In the series ᓯᓱᓴ, each syllable starts with the sound s in eastern (Qikiqtaaluk) dialects, but in western dialects, the pronunciation of the same symbols begins with h.

Vowel-only syllables

The -ai vowels were initially dropped due to typewriter-related constraints, but have recently been reintroduced in Nunavik. For example, the following show the Nunavik and Nunavut spellings, respectively, for the same syllablei: ᐯ pᵃⁱ pai ᐸᐃ pᵃi pai

Consonant-vowel syllables

This section lists all the basic CV characters used for Inuktitut and, unlike the summary chart above, it includes all letters with dots, too.

Final consonants

These superscript characters are used to indicate syllable codas.

Repertoire extension

ᖯ is used to represent sounds from Inuvialuktun dialects or borrowed words from other languages.  It represents a b sound in bl or bj. This sound may also be written using ᑉ,i eg.

ᐅᑉᓛᖅ

ᕼ is used to represent a borrowed h in eastern dialects, eg.

ᕼᐋᑭᕐᕕᒃ

In western dialects, the s- series produces this sound, so ᓵ can be used.i

Consonant clusters & geminates

Consonant clusters only occur where one syllable ends in a consonant and the next syllable begins with one. They therefore involve the use of final consonant symbols, eg.

ᐃᒡᓗ

Generally usage is straightforward. But there are some wrinkles.

Nng.Two ŋ consonants occuring together are typically represented using a distinct series of code points, eg.

ᐅᒥᐊᙳᐊᖅ

Note that the Latin orthography also changes, dropping the first g from ngng to give nng.

According to Mills,r Nunavik continues to use ᖕᖏ ŋŋi ŋŋi He also says that they typically use an alternate glyph shape which looks like an 8 rather than the ng-ligature.

Qq. Rather than *...ᖅᕿ ...qqi qqi the orthography substitutes ᑭ for ᕿ, resulting in the sequence ...ᖅᑭ qki qqi eg.

ᐅᑕᖅᑭᔪᖅ

The Latin orthography doesn't apply this change.

Clusters with j. In clusters that end with j the pronunciation is generally d͡ʒ, including the geminate jj,i eg.

ᓂᔾᔭᔪᑦ

Confusables

ᖕᒋ may cause some confusion, since it looks the same as ᖏ, eg. compare

ᑭᒍᑕᖕᒋᕐᓇᖅ

ᑲᖏᖅᑐᒃ

Context-based shaping & positioning

Inuktitut letters don't interact, so no special shaping is needed.

There are no combining marks, and context-based positioning is not needed either.

Word boundaries

Words are separated by spaces, however 'words' in Inuktitut can be quite complicated and often long, eg. parimunngauniralauqsimanngittunga means I never said I wanted to go to Paris.m

Hyphens are sometimes used. fig_hyphen shows 3 hyphens used inside words or to attach numbers to words.

Graphemes

Since there are no combining marks or decompositions, grapheme clusters correspond to individual characters.

Grapheme clusters

Base | superscript

Each letter is a grapheme cluster, and there are no combining marks to extend them. Final consonant letters are also treated as grapheme clusters.

Click on the text version of this word to see more detail about the composition.

	ᑲᖏᖅᑐᒃ
	ᐅᑉᓛᖅ
	ᑐᐱˈᒥ

Phrase & section boundaries

Inuktitut uses western punctuation.

The Unicode block contains two punctuation marks, ᐀ U+1400 HYPHEN and ᙮ U+166E FULL STOP, but they are not used for Inuktitut.

Observation: Use of m-dash in newspaper: ᐃᓱᒪᔪᖓᓕ ᖃᓄᐃᓕᐅᕈᑎᒃᓴᓄᑦ ᐸᕐᓇᐅᑎ ᑕᒪᑐᒪᓂ ᐊᕐᕌᒍᒥ ᐊᑐᕆᐊᖃᓕᕐᓂᖓᓂᒃ—ᐃᓚᒋᔭᐅᔪᑦ ᐅᑕᖅᑭᓯᒪᖕᒪᑕ.

Quotations

Inuktitut texts typically use quotation marks. Of course, due to keyboard design, quotations may also be surrounded by ASCII double and single quote marks.

eg. “ᑕᒪᓐᓇ ᓂᕆᐅᒋᓚᐅᙱᑕᕗᑦ, ᑭᓯᐊᓂᓕ ᑲᒪᒋᓗᐊᙱᖢᑎᒍ,” ᑲᓪᓗᒃ ᐅᖃᓚᐅᕐᑐᖅ ᑐᓴᕋᒥ ᑐᓴᒐᒃᓴᓂᒃ.

Line breaking & hyphenation

By default, lines are broken at inter-word spaces. As in almost all writing systems, certain punctuation characters should not appear at the end or the start of a line.

In-word line-breaks

Inuktitut uses hyphenation when words are broken at the end of a line. This is quite important for Inuktitut because the words can become very long (see word).

Text alignment & justification

The primary opportunities for full justification lie in inter-word spaces. Because Inuktitut words tend to be very long, hyphenation is extremely useful for managing justification in narrow columns. Even so, fig_justification shows that spaces can become reasonably large in constrained spaces.

Baselines, line height, etc.

Inuktitut uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts.

Inuktitut has no combining characters, and no ascenders or descenders, but the long vowel dot does sit slightly higher than the normal top line of the font.

To give an approximate idea, fig_baselines compares Latin and Inuktitut glyphs from the Noto Sans Canadian Aboriginal font. The basic height of Inuktitut letters is usually that of the Latin cap-height, however the long vowel dot appears above the Latin ascender line, creating a need for slightly larger line spacing.

fig_baselines_other shows similar comparisons for the Euphemia UCAS and Gadugi fonts.

Styling initials

Inuktitut can highlight initial letters in a paragraph. fig_initials shows how this can lead to a final consonant standing alone at the beginning of the continuation text; it is not part of the highlighted initial.