Inuit Languages - Writing

Writing

Because the Inuit language is spread over such a large area, divided between different nations and political units and originally reached by Europeans of different origins at different times, there is no uniform way of writing the Inuit language. Most Inuktitut in Nunavut and Nunavik is written using a script called Inuktitut syllabics, based on Canadian Aboriginal syllabics. The western part of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories use Latin alphabet usually identified as Inuinnaqtun. In Alaska, another Latin alphabet is used. Nunatsiavut uses an alphabet devised by German-speaking Moravian missionaries, which included the letter kra. Greenland's Latin alphabet was originally much like the one used in Nunatsiavut, but underwent a spelling reform in 1973 to bring the orthography in line with changes in pronunciation and better reflect the phonemic inventory of the language. The Siberian Yupik languages of Russia are written in a Cyrillic alphabet.