Natsilingmiutut


Netsilik, Natsilik,Nattilik, Netsilingmiut, Natsilingmiutut, Nattilingmiutut, Nattiliŋmiutut is a dialect of Inuvialuktun language once spoken in the Nattilik area of Nunavut, Canada by Netsilik Inuit.
Natsilingmiut came from natsik “seal” + postbase -lik “place with something” + postbase -miut “inhabitants of”.

Classification

Natsilik dialect has the special letters: š ř ŋ
These special characters are used by some Nattiliŋmiut speakers to document their dialect.
š – sounds like ‘shr’ and is distinct from both the s sound that is used in words borrowed from English and the more common h sound.
ř – sounds like an English r. It is distinct from the r sound used by other dialects, which is closer to the r sound made in French at the back of the throat.
ŋ – A small number of Inuktitut speakers use this character instead of ng. The use of ng is deceiving because it makes use of two letters to represent what is actually a single sound. In syllabics this sound is represented by a single character ᖕ.
Using this letter also makes the distinction between the sequence and long clearer, the first being spelled ‘nŋ’ and the latter ‘ŋŋ’. In eastern varieties of Inuktitut which do not have the sequence , long is spelled ‘nng’ rather than ‘ngng’.
When the letter ‘ŋ’ is not used, the distinction may be made by spelling ‘n'ng’ and ‘nng’.

Comparison