Eva Obed removes her headphones after reading the weather in Inuktitut in the OKâlaKatiget Society's main radio control room in Nain, N.L.Photography by Darren Calabrese/The Globe and Mail/The Globe and Mail
More below • Listen to a clip from Eva Obed’s broadcast
Eva Obed leans into the microphone and her voice begins to bounce up and down the Labrador coast. She reads a news item about an ugly-sweater party at the community centre, an update on the moose hunt and a vigil planned for a local Inuit woman who died in Goose Bay.
Then she puts on a song by Etulu and Susan Aningmiuq from their album I’m Glad In My Heart, listens to the first few notes of the acoustic guitar, takes off her headphones and smiles.
With each radio broadcast, Ms. Obed and the staff at the OKalaKatiget Society in Nain are spreading a language that residential schools once tried to stamp out of Labrador – Inuktitut, the Indigenous mother tongue of Canada’s Inuit people. “Our language, it’s who we are, it’s from our ancestors. It’s one of the things that defines us as Inuit,” said Ms. Obed, 30, a producer who hosts an afternoon show at the station. “It’s really important for our children and the next generation to know who we are.”
English and Inuktitut dictionaries are stacked on the translator's desk.
The radio station is trying to preserve Inuktitut, called Inuttitut here, at a time when more Inuit youth are turning to English.
They’re fighting an uphill battle – most of the teachers in Labrador’s schools are southerners who don’t speak the language, and Inuit children are increasingly living in a world of satellite television and smartphones that inundate them with English.
While basic Inuttitut is taught in school, the number of fluent speakers is declining across Labrador. In some schools, jobs for Innutitut speakers are going unfilled. The regional Nunatsiavut government is trying to counter that with a 50-year strategy to revitalize the language, sponsoring Inuttitut spelling bees and the development of an Inuttitut phrasebook app that lets users practise and hear the language on their smartphones.
“They teach it in school but Inuk speakers are really hard to come by,” said Arlene Ikkusek, the station’s executive director, who admits she couldn’t speak much Inuttitut when she started her job.
While recent census records suggest Inuktitut is spoken by more than 39,000 Inuit in Canada, the language is stronger farther north in places such as Nunavut than it is in northern Labrador. Only about 25 per cent of people in Nunatsiavut speak the language, according to the latest survey from Statistics Canada.
That leaves the OKalaKatiget Society, which also broadcasts online, filling an important cultural gap. It runs Inuttitut programming featuring language lessons, recipes, stories and news. There are interviews in both languages, local music and a ‘word of the day’ to help listeners learn. The station is the only news outlet serving northern Labrador in the Inuit language.
“Radio is still alive here,” Ms. Ikkusek said, proudly. “In this town, everywhere you go, you can hear it.”
Joanna Dicker, who acts as the radio station's translator, organizes a pile of dictionaries at her desk.
A schedule typed in English and Inuttitut sits on the control board.
The station’s translators who write its news bulletins have to navigate regional dialects that can make their jobs especially tricky. Common Inuit words, and the alphabet, vary from region to region in the north. In some cases, they’re translating English words that have no Inuit equivalent.
Even the word for the Inuit language itself has regional variations – it’s pronounced and written as Inuktitut in Nunavut, but called Inuttitut among the Inuit in northern Quebec and Nunatsiavut.
The version of Inuttitut broadcast by the OKalaKatiget Society is unique to this corner of Canada. Here, a coat is a “jaikak.” In northern Quebec, it’s a “ulikattak.” They use Labrador Inuit slang you won’t hear anywhere else. The local songs they play are unique to this region, too, with Inuttitut lyrics, folk and country influences from Newfoundland and a gospel sound left behind by the Moravian missionaries.
“You won’t hear the music we play on YouTube,” Ms. Ikkusek said.
For those who have to leave Labrador’s northern communities for school or medical trips, the radio station isn’t just a way to keep up with current events. It’s a link to something bigger than that.
“It makes you feel less homesick,” Ms. Ikkusek said. “When someone is away, they put on our station and they hear the words and they’re home again.”
The Labrador coast, seen through cloud cover from the air just outside Nain. The Inuit language spoken here is unique, using slang and even common words you won't find in Nunavut.
Many youth in Nain say they still struggle to speak Inuttitut. Statistics Canada estimates that only about 25 per cent of people in Nunatsiavut, the autonomous Inuit area in Labrador, speak the language.
It used to be that Labrador’s Inuit families could keep their language alive without any help. But as more Inuit graduate from schools with only a basic knowledge of Inuttitut, it’s not being passed on to their children. Adults say the language is especially hard to learn once they’re out of the school system.
“When my parents were young, that’s all they spoke,” said Lavinia Jararuse, a senior producer at the station. “They mostly learned it from elders, and older people. Then it began getting lost.”
Many youth here admit they still struggle to speak their ancestors’ language. Ms. Obed, who grew up in Nain, couldn’t say more than a few words in Inuttitut until she moved to George River, Que., to live with her mother after her father’s suicide. Inuttitut was the only option there and Ms. Obed taught herself the language in order to fit in with her new community and her family.
Once she learned how to speak it, she says she didn’t want to stop.
“It can be scary sometimes to think what if our language actually dies, and nobody knows how to speak it any more. That’s why we as Inuttitut speakers, we need to reach out and teach it,” Ms. Obed said. “I believe our language isn’t dying, it’s still alive. It’s surviving… As long as I keep speaking it, everything is okay.”
Audio: Eva Obed on the air
Hear Eva Obed read in Inuttitut in the OKâlaKatiget Society's main radio control room in Nain.
The Globe and Mail
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to be clear it was residential schools which implemented a policy to phase out the Inuit language.
Our Morning Update and Evening Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.