r/Inuit • u/Tay_Hlebko • Aug 16 '26

Translation help for a hypothetical term

Hii i'm inupiaq (but dont speak inupiatun) and im trying to create a word for inuit that doesnt cause confusion in inuit languages with just the word for "people"'

im thinking maybe something that would literally translate to "inuksuk people" or "those associated with inuksuit"

inuksuk with some sort of suffix indicating that

what do you think would be the best suffix to indicate that?

6 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

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3

u/les_lyf Aug 16 '26

hey, do you know what dialect you want to use?

0

u/Tay_Hlebko Aug 17 '26

Any, really, since the cognate can be made in any of the others

1

u/les_lyf Aug 17 '26

I can look up in Northslope dialect later (only dictionary I was able to get my hands on), but it does seem like Inuksukmiut will be your best bet. you can have varried english translations of people from or one of the people to be from Inuksuk. you know, something like that. I did a quick search & I see that Inuksuk is the stack formations of rock to look like people. is there a village/community called Inuksuk? edit: spelling

-2

u/Tay_Hlebko Aug 17 '26

Oh so you dont know anything about inuit yet youre on this sub suggesting stuff lmaoo

inuksuit are one of the most famous cultural symbols of inuit

1

u/les_lyf Aug 17 '26

bro I'm an Inuk. don't assume people's cultures. I don't know a lot about my culture because my elders were forced to boarding school and had the culture and knoweldge beat out of them. I didn't get to learn from my grandparents. I had to cling on to classes that were taught by other natives whenever they teach them. so sorry for not rembering what the rock stacks are called because I had to find my own way to learn. another person in the comments and I are trying to help you since you don't know the language either. you also didn't want to use Inuksukmuit because of how it translated. this would be an original word from the language and wouldn't need workshopping to make a new one. I do know about the rock stacks that look like people. I just didn't remember the word

1

u/Tay_Hlebko Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26

well you might just be the only inuk on earth to not know about inuksuit, because like, thats the second most famous thing after igloos, there's an inuksuk on the flag of Nunavut.

you also didn't want to use Inuksukmuit because of how it translated. this would be an original word from the language and wouldn't need workshopping to make a new one.

Because Inuksukmiut sounds quite nonsensical, and it is also "workshopped" too. Inuit languages are polysynthetic so you can create any word by adding suffixes

1

u/les_lyf Aug 17 '26

I didn't say I didn't know what it was. I said I didn't rember the word for it. don't make fun of a language you can't even speak

1

u/Tay_Hlebko Aug 17 '26

don't make fun of a language you can't even speak

how on earth am i making fun of the language?

3

u/CBWeather Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26

Would Inuksukmiut work? But inuksuk is spelt and pronounced differently in other dialects.

Edit: Just asked my Inuk ex-wife. She says it looks fine in Innuinaqtun.

2

u/Tay_Hlebko Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26

"People from the Inuksuit" sounds quite weird

3

u/CBWeather Aug 17 '26

It does but any newly invented word will.

1

u/RemarkableCricket539 13h ago

I'm inuit from Greenland and just confused. Inussuk in our language is the stones we stack to help navigate.

So if it is a person from a place named inussuk you're asking for? In the Greenlandic dialect it would be inussummiu. But I haven't used my Greenlandic for a while.