Uummarmiutun (), Uummaġmiutun or Canadian Iñupiaq is the variant of Iñupiaq (or

Inuvialuktun Inuvialuktun (part of ''Western Canadian Inuit'' / ''Inuktitut'' / '' Inuktut'' / '' Inuktun'') comprises several Inuit language varieties spoken in the northern Northwest Territories by Canadian Inuit who call themselves ''Inuvialuit''. Some d ...

) spoken by the

Uummarmiut The Uummarmiut or Uummaġmiut (, ''people of the green trees'') is the name given to the Inuvialuit who live predominantly in the Mackenzie Delta communities of Aklavik and Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. Their language is known as Uumm ...

, part of the

Inuvialuit The Inuvialuit (sing. Inuvialuk; ''the real people'') or Western Canadian Inuit are Inuit who live in the western Canadian Arctic region. They, like all other Inuit, are descendants of the Thule who migrated eastward from Alaska. Their homelan ...

, who live mainly in the communities of

Inuvik Inuvik (''place of man'') is the only town in the Inuvik Region, and the List of municipalities in the Northwest Territories, third largest community in Canada's Northwest Territories. Located in what is sometimes called the Beaufort Delta Re ...

and

Aklavik Aklavik (Inuvialuktun: ''Akłarvik'') (from the Inuvialuktun meaning '' barrenground grizzly place'') is a hamlet located in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. Until 1961, with a population over 1,500, the community served ...

in the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

of Canada.Inuvialuktun Dialects
/ref> This dialect is essentially the same as that spoken by the Inupiat of

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

, and is present in Canada because of migration from Alaska in the 1910s, reoccupying traditionally

Siglit The Sallirmiut (formerly Siglit) are an Inuit group residing in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. The Sallirmiut are regarded as part of the Inuvialuit, or western Canadian Inuit. Inuvialuit is a modern political identity that brings together S ...

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

lands abandoned during the devastating disease outbreaks of the previous century.The Inuvialuit by David Morrison, Curator of N.W.T. Archaeology (District of Mackenzie), Canadian Museum of Civilization
Because Inuvik and Aklavik are ethnically mixed communities where English is the near-exclusive language of communication, few young people speak Uummarmiutun and the language is very endangered. It is one of the three dialects –

Kangiryuarmiutun ''Kangiryuarmiutun'' (sometimes ''Kangirjuarmiut(un)'') is a dialect of Inuit languages, Inuit language spoken in Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, Canada by the Kangiryuarmiut, a Copper Inuit group. The dialect is part of the Inuvialuktun langu ...

and Siglitun are the other two – of the

Inuit language The Inuit languages are a closely related group of indigenous American languages traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and the adjacent subarctic regions as far south as Labrador. The Inuit languages are one of the two branche ...

grouped together under the label ''Inuvialuktun''.

Phonology

Uummartmiutun has thirty-one

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

s, six of which are

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

s, three short and three long, five of which are

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

s, the rest being

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

s: *Vowels: *Consonants:

Vocabulary comparison

A comparison of some animal names in the two dialects of Iñupiatun. The similarity in names is sometimes obscured by the different spelling conventions used in Alaska and Canada.

Phonology

Vocabulary comparison

See also

References

Further reading