Hovercraft Redux
or,
This Time I’m Not Kidding

In our last episode we met:

1. ᐅᒥᐊᕐᔫᑉ ᐳᓪᓕᓕᒫᐸᒐ ᑕᑦᑕᕐᓂᖅ ᐊᒻᒪᔭᖅ
2. Umiaryuap Publimaaqpaga tattaurniq ammayaq.
3. Umiarjuap Pullimmaqpaga tattaurniq nimiraq.

(dialects 1, 2 and 3 courtesy Omniglot)

followed in rapid succession by

and finally

7. ᐅᒥᐊᕐᔪᐊᕋ ᐳᑉᓚᓕᒫᖅᐹᒐ ᐊᒻᒪᔭᖅᑑᖑᔪᖅ
Umiarjuara publalimaaqpaaga ammajaqtuungujuq.

(dialects 4 through 7 courtesy me).

What could possibly be left?

• My Boat’s Bigger than Yours
• I’m Forever Blowing Publait
• Still Slithering after all these Years
• No Room in the Hovercraft

Back on Board: umiarjuup and umiarjuap

The ᐅᒥᐊᕐᔪᐊᖅ umiarjuaq (“big boat”) package has always been used for ships of any kind, whether sail or steam. Today it covers everything from cruise ships—when Alaskan cruises came into fashion, could the eastern Arctic be far behind?—to freighters.

Now, here’s a just-to-confuse-us detail. The ordinary term for “cruise ship” starts with ᐅᒥᐊᕐᔪᐊᖅ ᐳᓚᕋᖅ umiarjuaq pularaq-. One ell. No relation to pull- or publ- anything. The literal, or original, meaning of the verb root ᐳᓚ pula- is to enter head-first; here presumably it means to come into dock. Repeatedly, as indicated by the -raq- piece. What happens next in the word depends on what else is going on in the sentence and what the cruise ship is doing about it.

Man the Pumps: publilimaapaga, publimaaqpaga or publimmaqpaga

You can do all sorts of things with the ᐳᑉᓚᖅ publaq or “air bubble” root. With the appropriate affix, it can mean gas—both the state of matter and the kind you heat your house with—air brakes, air pumps, or anything else that uses air. Look closely at a neighboring page and you’ll find ᐳᑉᓚᙳᕈᔾᔨᓂᖅ (publanngurujjiniq), radon gas. In the area of transportation, the root can mean a jet plane—as in English, the motive power is key—or an inflatable boat (ᐅᒥᐊᖅ ᐳᑉᓚᓕᒃ umiaq publalik, ᐅᒥᐊᕐᓛᖅ ᐳᓪᓕᓕᒃ umiarlaaq pullilik, and assorted other variant forms to taste). It can even mean . . . uhm . . . sulphur. Haven’t quite figured that one out yet.

The proper and official spelling is ᐳᑉᓚᖅ publaq or ᐳᓪᓚᖅ pullaq with an a. But the i form crops up so often that you have to call it a legitimate dialectal variation. Or a ubiquitous misspelling, which amounts to the same thing.

I have yet to find any form of the complete word anywhere. Where did Omniglot’s contri­butors get hold of it? Are all three of them in the hovercraft business? But further poring over the word’s possible breakdown raises the possibility that, sans possessive, it ends in pak, making the g perfectly legitimate. Oops. The jury remains out on the publili- versus publi- question.

Meanwhile, I found one quasi-official document that sidesteps the ships-and-bubbles issue altogether. Here we are in the Sealift Summ— No, let’s give it its full name. Make that ”Consi­derations Regarding an Open Market System for Annual Sealift:* Summary Report” dated December 2009. Ignoring all permutations of publaq and umiaq, they go with ᐃᒪᐅᑉ ᖄᖓᒍᑦ ᐃᖏᕐᕋᓲᖅ imaup qaangagut ingirrasuuq, “something that habitually travels in the space above the water”. But the writers themselves don’t seem too sure of it. Later in the same report they try ᓄᓇᐅᑉ ᐃᒪᐅᑉᓘᓐᓃ ᖁᓛᒍᑦ nunaup imaup­luunnii qulaagut, “along the top of the ground or water”—at which point they give up and throw in a paren­thetic ᕼᐊᕗᑯᕌᕝ (“havukuraav”).†

I never did find the noun that this second description belongs to. Either it’s hiding in another part of the paragraph, or the writers gave up in mid-phrase. We are also left in doubt about the havukuraav’s exact vertical position. Maybe it’s above the water, in the water’s ᖄ qaa; maybe it’s scudding along the top, on the water’s ᖁᓛ qulaa. It’s the difference between a bird flying over your house and a bird walking along the roof ridge.

You don’t usually think of hovercraft as traveling over, or possibly above, dry land. But on the tundra in the snowmelt season—which neatly spans the gap between the previous winter’s last snowfall and the coming winter’s first—the distinction between ᓄᓇ nuna and ᐃᒪᖅ imaq is probably fairly academic.

It’s remarkable what a lot of words Inuktitut has for things that don’t even exist in the Arctic. I don’t mean new constructions like all those publalik variants. The most recent findings of modern archaeology strongly suggest that the proto-Indo-Europeans didn’t have hovercraft either. No, I’m talking about inherited words, like the seven different words for “frog”. The people who were allotted Greenland in the Ur-powwow* traveled light, but they still found room for the Athabaskan word naaraajiiq.

There are neither reptiles nor amphibians in the Arctic. This is a bit of a problem, because the only references I’ve found for ᓂᒥᕋᖅ nimiraq—or ᓂᒥᕆᐊᖅ nimiriaq or ᓂᒥᕌᖅ nimiraaq—say it means “snake”. And, if you really want to split hairs, an ᐊᒻᒪᔭᖅ ammajaq is not a true eel but a “sand eel”. But if it’s a choice between sand eels and snakes, I’m sticking with the ᐊᒻᒪᔭᐃᑦ ammajait.

In any case, I still don’t see why there’s only one of it. That kind of thing should be left to the affixes, which come equipped with their own multipliers when needed. Nor have I figured out why the eels are Nominative. Or Absolutive, if you want to be snarky about it. It’s simply not that kind of verb. Eels could conceivably fill your hovercraft—but only if you fitted them with custom-designed pitchforks, allowing them (as agents) to fill the hovercraft (as patient) with some third party. A rival faction of eels, possibly. If you absolutely insist on Nominative, Intran­sitive or Absolutive eels coupled with a Genitive, Transitive or Ergative hovercraft, you’ll have to go with some other verb entirely. My hovercraft contains eels, that kind of thing. Good luck finding one, though. The language prefers to keep the emphasis on the act of putting something into a container.

No Vacancy: tattarniq or tattaurniq

I am still (-nga- or possibly -uma- for ongoing action) clueless about this word. The ending, that is; there is nothing in the opening syllables to cause concern. If the translators choose to spell the perfectly straight­forward verb tatat- with an extra t, that is their business. But the -(u)rniq remains an impenetrable mystery. So let’s stick with that belatedly discovered Dative case.

Dialect Eight:

ᐃᒪᐅᑉ ᖄᖓᒍᑦ ᐃᖏᕐᕋᓲᕋ ᐊᒻᒪᔭᕐᓄᑦ ᑕᑕᑦᑐᖅ
imaup qaangagut ingirrasuura ammajarnut tatattuq.

Can we all agree that Inuktitut has a word for everything? Assuming, that is, that your definition of “word” doesn’t include “discrete lexical item”. So imagine my dismay when I discovered that they don’t have a word for nothing. Or nobody.*

Really. I looked. The dictionaries—Spalding and Schneider, as well as the online Defunct Dictionary†—are silent. My assembled pronoun lists had nothing to say. For appearances’ sake I even consulted Tusaa­langa. Didn’t expect to find anything, and didn’t. After all, this is the course that calls tunga an affix and miit a verb, and explains away all phonetic rules with “to make pronunciation easier”.

Now, where were we? Right. Nowhere. At least, that’s where the question is discussed in Spalding’s 1975 textbook—not to be confused with his 1992 grammar, which I have yet to lay hands on. Possibly the treatment of “nothing” and “nobody” eloped with the dual number. But that’s a matter for another day.

By and by I had a brainwave and consulted Erdmann. Unlike most dictionaries this one goes in both directions, Labradorian to German and back again. But no joy there either. Sure, there are respectably long paragraphs under both nichts and niemand. But on closer inspection they all turn out to be verbs involving -nngittuq (-ngitok, says Erdmann). Even the Hansard, ordinarily so helpful, let me down with a thud, offering nothing but an assortment of negative affixes.

So how do you say “Nobody here but us chickens”?

Watch this space.

Ponder the word, or rather verb root

ᖃᓄᐃᑦ qanuit
“break, malfunction, have something wrong”

There is obviously an element of “Hope for the best, plan for the worst” in Inuktitut, because one place this verb crops up is in greetings. ᖃᓄᐃᑉᐱᑦ? (qanuippit?) taken literally is not How are you? or How do you do? but more like Is something wrong with you? The conventional answer is No, in the same way that the ordinary positive answer to questions beginning “Do you mind . . . ?” is No, I don’t mind. Saying Yes, I do mind is unexpected at best, rude at worst.* Similarly when you ask someone in Inuktitut if they’re feeling unwell, you don’t want them to say Yes.

But sometimes you have to expect things to break, malfunction or simply go wrong. It’s in the nature of inanimate objects. To say nothing of the nature of, well, nature.

ᖃᓄᐃᑦ + ᑐᓐᓇᖅ-
qanuit + tunnaq-

It may not have gone wrong yet, but it has the capacity for doing so. And it doesn’t even need any fresh consonants; the q, n and t will happily return for a second shift. And a third:

ᖃᓄᐃᑦᑐᓐᓇᖅ + ᑐᖅ
qanuittunnaq + tuq

If you call the -tuq a verb ending, you can stop right there. It, whatever it may be, is able to go wrong. But if, instead, you call the -tuq a verb-to-noun converter—here meaning simply a thing that does whatever the verb is—you can continue building on to it. Still keeping to our original three consonants:

ᖃᓄᐃᑦᑐᓐᓇᖅᑐ(ᖅ) + ᑐᐃᓐᓇᖅ
qanuittunnaqtu(q) + tuinnaq

The -ᑐᐃᓐᓇᖅ (-tuinnaq) eats the preceding q, but that is OK. No matter how many scarcities or shortages there are in the far North, one thing is certain. The language is not going to run out of q’s.

This final piece doesn’t mean anything in particular—and that’s just the point. We’re not pointing fingers or talking about some specific thing; we’re talking about anything that can go wrong. Except that we can’t really talk about it unless there’s a verb. So it’s on to Word Two. The sentence is looking so pretty with that trio of recurring consonants, why change? Heck, let’s just reuse the self-same verb again.

ᖃᓄᐃᑦᑐᓐᓇᖅᑐᑐᐃᓐᓇᖅ ᖃᓄᐃᑦ-
qanuittunnaqtutuinnaq qanuit-

We’ve already taken care of ability, so this time let’s go with tense. To stay with the ᖃᓇᑕ* q-n-t motif we’ll pick up a ᓂᐊᖅ (niaq) for the generic future: maybe not tomorrow, next week or as soon as I blink, but it’s bound to happen sooner or later.

ᖃᓄᐃᑦᑐᓐᓇᖅᑐᑐᐃᓐᓇᖅ ᖃᓄᐃ(ᑦ) + ᓂᐊᖅ-
qanuittunnaqtutuinnaq qanui(t) + niaq-

Nasals don’t generally eat preceding consonants outright, but they can forcibly assimilate them. Especially if that preceding consonant is a t, always the most unassertive member of the syllabary.

Cap it all off with a verb ending:

ᖃᓄᐃᑦᑐᓐᓇᖅᑐᑐᐃᓐᓇᖅ ᖃᓄᐃᓐᓂᐊᖅ + ᑐᖅ
qanuittunnaqtutuinnaq qanuinniaq + tuq

to yield

ᖃᓄᐃᑦᑐᓐᓇᖅᑐᑐᐃᓐᓇᖅ ᖃᓄᐃᓐᓂᐊᖅᑐᖅ
qanuittunnaqtutuinnaq qanuinniaqtuq

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Wasn’t that fun?

Northern Rats

Elvis has Left the Building

This is not an assessment of my relationship with the Inuktitut language, although it could have been. I simply happened to have need of the statement. So let’s see what we can do.

The sound sequence -elv- does not occur in Inuktitut. Fortunately our friend the Hansard comes through with an MLA named Kelvin Ng, giving us the phonetic analogy. If “Kelvin” is ᑭᐅᓪᕕᓐ (kiulvin), then “Elvis” can only be ᐃᐅᓪᕕᔅ (iulvis).

We can now get going on the verb. The root is

Hey, I know that one. It’s one of the, at rough count, three words in Atanarjuat that I understand when I watch it without subtitles. (Another is ᐋᒡᒐ. Or however they say it in Iglulik.) Well, aside from the initial confusion of thinking grandma was telling Puja* something about her brother and co-villain.

A final digression: Alongside the simple ᐊᓂ- there is the longer verb ᐊᓂᒍᖅ- (aniguq-). I do not perfectly understand how this form arose. There are a couple of -ᒍᖅ- affixes, but none of them seems to be involved here. The nuances of meaning also elude me. But the longer form seems to lean in the direction of “move through” rather than “move out of”.

It is not every day that, given a choice between a shorter form and a longer form, you are allowed to stick with the short form. I do not propose to pass up the opportunity.

Add the tense marker -ᓯᒪ- (-sima-, completed action) and the inflectional ending -ᔪᖅ (-juq, third person singular, intransitive or non-specific) and we’ve got

ᐊᓂ + ᓯᒪ + ᔪᖅ = ᐊᓂᓯᒪᔪᖅ
ani + sima + juq = anisimajuq

But we’re not done yet. Elvis didn’t walk off into the sunset. In fact he may not have gone anywhere at all; he may be standing right outside. All we know for sure is that he left the building. That’s ᐃᒡᓗ (iglu) meaning a house—of any kind, not necessarily a snow house—with affix -ᔪᐊᖅ (-juaq), large.

There is absolutely no phonetic reason why ᐃᒡᓗ + ᔪᐊᖅ can’t yield a simple ᐃᒡᓗᔪᐊᖅ (iglujuaq). But as noted elsewhere, this particular affix insists on an extra r to protect it from preceding vowels—even when there’s only one. Most affixes don’t call in the r’s unless they’re facing down two preceding vowels. In fairness, ᔪᐊᖅ does have two vowels of its own to look after, with nothing but a feeble semivowel to bar the way. Some dialects allow three consecutive vowels; a collision of four might bring the language crashing to the ground. Call it belt-and-suspenders.

Finally we need a case ending. ᐊᓂ- (ani-) is an intransitive or nonspecific verb, so the “nominative” stays with the agent. Any other nouns in the vicinity get shoved into one of the remaining seven cases.

But which of those seven? On one hand is the accusative -ᒥᒃ (-mik) for what we Indo-Europeans call a direct object. If Elvis had simply turned and looked at the building—or if, conversely, he had picked it up and flung it bodily across Qikiqtaaluk—there would be no doubt: only ᐃᒡᓗᕐᔪᐊᕐᒥᒃ (iglurjuarmik) will do.

On the other hand, consider that every adverb of place comes in a matched set of four:

If you can’t use the ablative to leave a building, what can you use it for? I’m going with ᐃᒡᓗᕐᔪᐊᕐᒥᑦ (iglurjuarmit). Besides, it lets me indulge in a rousing chorus of

Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the ablative,
I’m sticking to the ablative, I’m sticking to the ablative.
Oh you can’t scare me . . .

Et cetera. In sum:

ᐃᐅᓪᕕᔅ ᐃᒡᓗᕐᔪᐊᕐᒥᑦ ᐊᓂᓯᒪᔪᖅ
iulvis iglurjuarmit anisimajuq