photo of Alana Johns with a copy of Utkuhiksalingmiut Uqauhiitigut

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Recent

1. Sinâni: Labrador Inuttitut on the Edge (SSHRC funded project)

The Sinâni Inuttut Group is a research project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). It was awarded in 2015 to Alana Johns of University of Toronto (Principal Investigator), Ivona Kučerová of McMaster University (Co-Investigator) and Johannes Lampe of Torngâsok Cultural Centre.

The goal of the research is to collect and transcribe audio/video of natural Inuttitut in Nunatsiavut from a wide range of speakers throughout Nunatsiavut. These materials will serve two main purposes. We will also transcribe older audio materials which have never been written down.

Linguistic: To examine the grammar of sentences, paragraphs, stories and dialogue for grammatical patterns, e.g. transitive marking on verbs (ergativity), and other constructions.

Community: To provide a large number written Inuttitut that is not a translation from English but is direct from the Inuk speaker to the page. These materials will help preserve the rich cultural tradition of Nunatsiavut and to aid learners and teachers of the language who need intermediate materials to strengthen learning. Working with Torngâsok we will train transcribers and devise the best means of archiving and also displaying these materials.

There are two teams for this project, the Toronto team and the Nunatsiavut team.


2. Utkuhiksalingmiut Uqauhiitigut: Dictionary of Utkuhiksalingmiut Inuktitut Postbase Suffixes, co-authored by Jean Briggs, Alana Johns, and Conor Cook, was published in 2015. [link]


3. Tradition and Transition among the Labrador Inuit. [link]

Alana Johns is a co-investigator on this SSHRC Partnership Grant involving Memorial University of Newfoundland, the Nunatsiavut Government and many others.