Inuttituuqqajatsiaquunginama.. There. I said it.

Inuttitut is one of the strongest aboriginal languages in the world. Nunavik has the highest retention rate out of all the Inuit regions in Canada.. everyone speaks inuttitut, everyone understands words here and there, we all understand and even if we dont speak it, we get the point of the conversation. I used to consider myself a fluent inuttitut speaker, but the closer i look at the way i use the language, i'm starting to realize that i'm a bad speaker.

I'm honest to god a bad inuttitut speaker. I dont know the real inuttitut. When i speak, i mix english and inuttitut like it's my job. I mix sentences and even words. Seriously, I cant even complete a word in one language sometimes. Ex: "Mirror-ra sukkulaurtu when i closed the door, slam-kallasugu ilaaniungitu. Then i had to clean the saniks it made. Good thing i didnt kilik" That's the way i speak.. that's how most of my friends speak, we talk to each other like that. It's pathetic.. and the reason i do it is because im just lazy.. I recognize that it's going to be hard twork to change it, there are habits that need breaking and it's a lifestyle choice that im going to have to make.

People talk about the impending loss of the inuttitut language.. they discuss ways of saving it. Meetings, policy and workshops are held regularly to figure out how to keep it alive. But i can feel it dying inside of me.. with every English word i write, with every "hi" n place of "Ai".. every little thing i do, i'm contributing to the death of my mother tongue. It can happen in my lifetime.. mostly because it`s not just me doing it.. my peers all do it, that`s how we communicate with each other. Politicians keep trying to save it.. but none of thier work is of any use if we keep acting the way we do. No policy or workshop can make us change.. it needs to come from within.. we need to stop killing inuttitut.. we need to start speaking it. Properly.