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Update on the words “Inuk” and “Inuit”
An English blog post on the use of the words “Inuit” and “Inuk.”In 2009, the Translation Bureau issued a recommendation on the use of the terms “Inuk” and “Inuit.” The Bureau has now published a new recommendation that reflects the current usage in 2023. Background In 2009, the Translation Bureau recommended that the term “Inuit” be used in English as a plural noun and as an adjective, and that the term “Inuk” be used only as a singular noun. However, the use of these terms in English has evolved with the passage of time, and the Translation Bureau has therefore revised its recommendation to keep abreast of modern usage. Recommendation The Translation Bureau continues to recommend the use of “Inuit” as a plural noun and the use of “Inuk” as a singular noun in reference to persons, in keeping with the meaning of these terms in Inuktitut. It’s now acceptable to use “Inuk” as an adjective also. But there’s an important caveat: “Inuk” can be used only to modify a person, never an object. And it must be used with a singular noun, not a plural one: An Inuk singer won the Indigenous Music Award for best album. With plural nouns designating people, and with all other nouns, whether singular or plural, the adjective to use is “Inuit”: A group of Inuit drummers is performing at the music festival. The children were captivated by the storyteller’s account of the Inuit legend. “Inuit” can also be used in place of “Inuk” with singular nouns designating people: The Inuit sculptor works in soapstone. For more specific information, consult the Translation Bureau’s Linguistic Recommendation on “Inuk” and “Inuit (opens in new tab).” Meaning in Inuktitut It’s important to note that in Inuktitut, the noun “Inuit” is plural in form and refers to several persons. Therefore, it remains invariable in English, and an “s” should not be added to the end of the word to pluralize it. In addition, because “Inuit” means “the people,” it would be redundant to say “the Inuit people” in English. “Inuit” is used alone as the plural noun: Preserving cultural traditions is of great importance to Inuit. (not “to Inuit people” or “to the Inuit people”) Certain terms relating to Indigenous realities, including the terms “Inuk” and “Inuit,” are addressed in the Guide on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Terminology (opens in new tab), which a large number of federal departments and agencies contributed to. It’s important that Indigenous realities be taken into consideration in any discussion about equity, diversity and inclusion, which, like reconciliation, are priorities for the Government of Canada. The Translation Bureau’s recommendation in regard to the use of “Inuk” and “Inuit” as nouns corresponds to the information provided in the Guide, which underwent extensive discussion and consultation. As you can see, the terms “Inuk” and “Inuit” are perhaps a little more complex than you might originally have thought. But with the explanations and examples given here and in our recommendation, you’ll have no trouble mastering their correct use.Source: Our Languages blog (posts from our contributors)
Number of views: 4,545
The evolution of gender in the English language
A blog post about the history of gender in the English language.The gender of words is such a simple, yet complex, concept. Grammatically, gender is merely a way of classifying the words in a lexicon. Socially, gender is the way societies use language to structure the world.Note 1 Nowadays, there’s a lot of talk about gender in the context of inclusive writing. In this post, however, we’ll talk about the evolution of gender in the English language and what remains of the systems of past centuries. Old English: The 5th to 11th centuries The evolution of the English language is marked by three main periods: the Old English (or Anglo Saxon) period, the Middle English period and the Modern English period. Modern English no longer bears any resemblance whatsoever to Old English, so much so that, today, you can’t even read Old English without having studied it. Spoken and written from the 5th century until the Norman Conquest, Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) was brought to England by the Germanic and Scandinavian tribes who settled there. It has its own vocabulary, its own grammar and even its own alphabet (which is called futhorc). With its Germanic roots, Old English borrows from Latin, Old French and Old Norse. Like Latin and Modern German, Old English is what we call an inflected language. Its grammar is based on a system of five main cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and instrumental), three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) and two numbers (singular and plural).Note 2 Unlike nouns in Modern English, nouns in Old English are gendered, that is, masculine nouns are feminized. For example, the word bæcere (baker) is written bæcestre in the feminine form. In Old English, adjectives and pronouns agree with the subject in gender and number. Gender in Old English is grammatical: nouns that designate living organisms correspond to the biological sex of the organism they refer to, whereas with nouns that designate inanimate objects, gender is assigned more arbitrarily and unrelated to the meaning of the noun. Middle English: The 11th to 15th centuries When William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, Anglo-Norman (a variant of Old French) became the language of high society, while English was relegated to the lower classes. All the transformations that English society underwent following the Norman Conquest influenced the language. Old English gradually transformed and gave way to Middle English (spoken from 1150 to 1500). At that time, under various influences, the English language lost its system of inflections and gender assignment: feminine forms disappeared, as did grammatical gender. English started becoming simpler and more like Modern English. In fact, you can read the original Middle English version of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (one of the best-known literary works of that time) and understand its overall meaning. Modern English: The 15th century to present In Modern English, only the pronouns he, she and it, as well as suffixes like -man, -woman and -ess mark gender.Note 3 However, some nouns designating inanimate objects are always assigned a gender. Have you ever wondered why we use she when talking about a ship? A ship has no biological sex, but it has been assigned a feminine identity for centuries. Why is a ship a she? A number of theories have been put forward to explain why certain nouns designating inanimate objects still have a gender marker. It’s interesting to note that, in many cases, these nouns take the feminine gender, rather than the masculine: the well-known ship, Earth, countries and nature, to name a few.Note 4 In the case of ship, some believe it may have taken on a feminine gender under the influence of the Latin word navis, a feminine noun meaning “ship.” However, since the Old English word scip (neuter, not feminine, gender) was borrowed from the Germanic languages to designate the boats we call ships today, this theory doesn’t seem to hold water. Symbolism and tradition may also explain the phenomenon. In the history of many cultures, ships were dedicated to goddesses or mythical female figures who were said to protect and guide sailors on their voyages. These maritime deities were considered the guardians of the seas, and designating ships as female would have been a way of invoking their protection. The use of the pronoun she to designate ships isn’t universally accepted. Some people, who consider the use of the pronoun she to be sexist, would prefer that the pronoun it be used to designate ships. As language continues to evolve and degender, it will be interesting to see if the practice of using the pronoun it for words like ship becomes more established. One thing is certain: language will continue to evolve with the societies that use it, and the English we speak 1500 years from now may not bear any resemblance to the English we speak today. What do you think English will be like centuries from now? Sources Note 1 Guenfoud, Razika. (2020–2021). Genre grammatical : étude morphosyntaxique (PDF). [Doctoral thesis, University of Biskra]. University of Biskra Theses Repository. Return to note 1 referrer Note 2 Langster. (n.d.). A Brief History of the English Language: From Old English to Modern Days. Return to note 2 referrer Note 3 Curzan, Anne. (2003). Gender Shifts in the History of English. Cambridge University Press. Return to note 3 referrer Note 4 Whorf, Benjamin Lee. (1956). Language, Thought, and Reality. MIT Press. Return to note 4 referrerSource: Our Languages blog (posts from our contributors)
Number of views: 2,610
Let’s talk noun strings!
An English blog post about noun stringsI’m a French-to-English translator by trade, so I’ve spent years working on improving my grammar and style in my native language. I’m still learning constantly, because to translate well is to write well! One of the most difficult things about translating from French is making the English sound like English. It’s easy to stick too closely to the French and end up with a noun-heavy translation. This is because, unlike English, which tends to use more verbs, French favours the use of nouns. Let me illustrate: French: Il a fait la longueur du fleuve Fraser à la nage. English: He swam the length of the Fraser River. French: La motion du gouvernement sur l'évaluation des amendements du Sénat est équilibrée. English: The government motion on assessing the Senate amendments is balanced. As we can see from the above examples, one way a translator can render French nouns in English is by using verbs or verb forms. However, that’s not always possible. Another way to make the English more idiomatic is to use something called noun strings. Let’s take a closer look at the second example and identify the series of French nouns: motion du gouvernement amendements du Sénat “Motion du gouvernement” is translated by “government motion” and “amendements du Sénat” is rendered by “Senate amendments.” Both “government motion” and “Senate amendments” are examples of noun strings. What is a noun string? A noun string is formed when several nouns are stacked one after the other and function as a whole. In a noun string, all the nouns except the last one act as modifiers: for example, “government motion” (where the noun “government” modifies the noun “motion”). Often, noun strings may contain adjectives as well as nouns: for example, “Olympic sports guide” (where the adjective “Olympic” modifies the noun “sports,” and together they form a noun phrase that modifies the noun “guide”). English loves noun strings. They’re part of the idiom of the language. Two- or three-word strings are common and easy to understand. However, strings of four or more words can be much more difficult to process. For example, “federal public service senior management” is a five-word string of nouns and adjectives that readers may find a bit challenging! When you have a very long string like this one, you may have to break it up with prepositions. So “federal public service senior management” can be reworded much more effectively as “senior management within the federal public service.” What happens when noun strings creep into English translations? Noun strings can weigh down a text, making it difficult for readers to understand. When you have to read a sentence several times to understand the meaning, it’s a sign that your translation needs to be reworked. Here’s an example from a recent translation by my colleagues at the Language Portal: La plume d’or du Blogue Nos langues And here’s some background for you: the “Blogue Nos Langues” is the title of the blog, and “La plume d’or” is the title of an initiative. Initially, my co-workers translated with a noun string: The Our Languages Blog Golden Quill This translation is quite a mouthful! Also, the reader has to read until the end of the noun string to get to the important information: the Golden Quill. Recognizing the problem, the team came up with a more reader-friendly solution that doesn’t rely on noun strings: The Golden Quill: An Initiative of the Our Languages Blog Knowing that the Golden Quill was an “initiative,” my colleagues were able to incorporate the additional context into their translation. Here are some more examples of long noun strings and how to get around them: French: Nous avons lancé un programme de repas santé à l’école afin d’améliorer les choix alimentaires des parents et des enfants. English with strings: We’ve launched a school-based healthy lunch program to improve parents’ and kids’ food choices. Improved English: We’ve launched a lunch program in schools to help parents and kids make healthier food choices. In this example, I’ve broken up the first noun string by adding a preposition (“in”) and moving the idea of “healthy” to the end of the sentence. French: Nous avons récemment publié le plan de gestion des risques pour la sécurité des déchets des centrales nucléaires. English with strings: We recently published the nuclear power plant waste security risk management plan. Improved English: We recently published a plan to manage the security risks associated with nuclear power plant waste. To get rid of the eight-word noun string, I broke it into two shorter and easier-to-understand strings: “security risks” and “nuclear power plant waste.” (Note: Although “nuclear power plant waste” is a four-word string, it’s easy to understand because “nuclear power plant” is a familiar phrase that functions as a single unit of meaning. So the reader doesn’t have to think about “nuclear power plant” and figure out the relationships between the words.) What about you? Do you have any examples of noun strings to share? Comment below with your best brain twister, and I’ll try to unravel it!Source: Our Languages blog (posts from our contributors)
Number of views: 499