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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 To give an example from a polysynthetic language such as Inuktitut, where words function more like sentences do in Western languages: in Markoosie’s Uumajursiutik unaatuinnamut, a full 88% of the words appear only once.
2 This holds true with many minority languages; see, e.g. Krause Citation2013; Londoño Citation2016.
3 Ida Saunders, a Kuujjuaq-based translator and interpreter, for example, employs thoughtful, creative strategies in her translation of a poem by Taqralik Partridge. For a detailed examination, see Henitiuk and Mahieu Citation2023.
4 A 1993 issue of Meta dedicated to translating and interpreting in Canada’s north contains a few articles dealing with Inuit languages, mostly in the medical and legal fields. A 2016 MA thesis by Noelle Palmer explores translation’s role in linguistic standardization of Inuit languages. Louis-Jacques Dorais has also published articles such as “Tusaaji tusilaartuq: When the translator must be hard of hearing” (Citation2015). Not specifically informed by translation studies, but a useful introduction to the corpus is Noel McDermott’s “Canadian Literature in Inuktitut” (in Langgård and Thisted Citation2011, 223–244).
5 In 2010, the Presses de l’Université du Québec (collection Jardin de Givre) republished a translation of the autobiography of Taamusi Qumaq, originally appearing in the magazine Tumivut, without any problematizing of the fact that the name(s) of the translator(s) are not mentioned and probably not even known. The website Inuit Literature, under the responsibility of the director of Jardin de Givre, nonetheless claims that this text is “considered the most important literary text of Nunavik”.
6 This paragraph is drawn from Henitiuk and Mahieu Citation2022.
7 First introduced at the Nunavut Legislative Assembly in 2007 to designate the language of the Inuit as spoken in Nunavut (including the main language groups of Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun), the term “Inuktut” is increasingly used to encompass all Inuit dialects found within Canada (including each different variety of Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun and Inuvialuktun). Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami passed a resolution adopting this term in April 2016 (Patrick, Murasugi, and Palluq-Cloutier Citation2018, 150).
8 Western literary genres do not of course map easily onto Inuit stories and song, which have their own generic categories.
9 Sanaaq was written in the 1950s/60s but published in Inuktitut only in 1984, with a French translation by anthropologist Bernard Saladin d’Anglure appearing in 2002. In the published English translation (based on the French; Nappaaluk Citation2014, 26), this passage reads: “The Qallunaat had come to visit. Once they were ashore, Aqiarulaaq shouted to the Big Eyebrows, “Ai!” They failed to understand, not making the slightest response. They began to talk among themselves. The Inuit were astonished to hear them speak […]”.
12 Major herself reads no Indigenous languages – fair enough, the doctoral dissertation on which she is working concerns the translation into French of exclusively English-language Indigenous texts. For a different evaluation of our book by someone familiar with Inuit languages and communities, see Dorais Citation2022.
13 The aim here is not to provide a detailed rebuttal of Major’s review, including alleged discrepancies between our French and English translations. Suffice it to say that her claim regarding unidiomatic French would surprise Zola, Gide, Aragon, and Derrida, to name just a few canonical authors who have used the construction cited as erroneous.
14 A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was active 2008–2015, addressing the trauma of residential schools for Indigenous children.
15 A SSHRC-funded project led by Keavy Martin and Julie Rak (co-editors of a 2015 edition of Mini Aodla Freeman’s autobiography that reinserts material excised, against the author’s wishes, from the first edition published in 1978), “Government Agents, Literary Agents: Inuit Books and Government Intervention, 1968–1985”, set out a few years ago to examine how the work of the Social and Cultural Division of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs “shape[d] the publication and circulation” of Inuit writing particularly in the 1970s and to answer the question: “how does this affect what is known about Inuit writing right now?” (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOgy4EZnPEE for a brief presentation.)
16 Despite the limited corpus in Nunavimmiutitut, there is much work here for both translators and translation studies scholars, especially the younger generation, especially Inuit, should they wish to take up the baton.
17 See Rivet Citation2014; the Facebook page can be found under the book's title. The Abraham Ulrikab diary (translated into German by Moravian missionary Carl Gottlieb Kretschmer) is an important Inuit text where the original is now considered lost; another example of a missing original is Moi, Nuligak/I, Nuligak (translated into both French and English by Father Maurice Métayer).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Valerie Henitiuk
Valerie Henitiuk is professor emerita at Concordia University of Edmonton and former director of the British Centre for Literary Translation, as well as former editor of Translation Studies. Her work on the translation of Inuit literature has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, as was earlier research on European translations of Classical Japanese literature. Henitiuk’s publications include both trade editions and a critical edition on work by Markoosie Patsauq (2020 and 2021; done collaboratively with Marc-Antoine Mahieu).
Marc-Antoine Mahieu
Marc-Antoine Mahieu teaches Inuktitut language and linguistics at INALCO, Sorbonne Paris Cité. He is a member of LACITO (Languages and Cultures of Oral Tradition) at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. He is also adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology at Université Laval, and consultant for the Kativik School Board in Nunavik. His publications include both trade editions and a critical edition on work by Markoosie Patsauq (2020 and 2021; done collaboratively with Valerie Henitiuk).