With the ability to communicate Inuktitut on Hockey Evening in Canada is sort of a dream come true for Pujjuut Kusugak.
“It is simply a kind of issues that you simply wished and also you fantasized about however now it is an actual factor that is developing,” he mentioned.
Kusugak, and a small assortment of different passionate audio system, will get the prospect to talk their very own languages quickly on Hockey Evening in Canada (HNIC) which is able to broadcast three video games in Plains Cree and three video games in Inuktitut this NHL season.
APTN will air the video games in Cree on Jan. 18, Feb. 8 and Feb. 22 and the video games in Inuktitut on March 8, March 22 and April 12.
Earl Wooden, from Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta, has beforehand commentated on HNIC in Cree and shall be joined by announcer Clarence Iron and analysts John Chabot and Jason Chamakese.
Wooden says the broadcasts are a approach to work towards reclaiming Indigenous languages.
“It permits for an entire totally different means of infusing the significance of our language into younger folks with the primary sport in Canada,” he mentioned.
“Any platform we are able to use as a catalyst to create any sort of an infusion in the direction of curiosity in our language, which is our id, for the younger folks I feel is a superb platform.”
Kusugak, who’s from Rankin Inlet, agrees that the broadcasts are a chance to create extra curiosity within the language.
He’ll present color commentary alongside play-by-play caller David Ningeongan on the Inuktitut broadcasts. The 2 commentated for the Olympics collectively however Kusugak says being on HNIC is totally different.
The large stage offered by HNIC exhibits a requirement for Inuktitut language programming in all kinds of matters, he mentioned.
“David and I, we discuss issues like how necessary our language is and inspiring younger folks to hopefully take over what we’re doing sooner or later, as a result of now it isn’t only for dialog that we use our language,” he mentioned.
“Now it is used for leisure, artwork and sportscasting.”
That additionally exhibits the necessity for the language to evolve and develop, he mentioned.
Some hockey phrases in Inuktitut:
Objective – itiqtitsijut
Hooking – niksiksingmat
Icing – sikuqsijut
Penalty – tigujaujuq
Up to now, the language was formed by the land and the atmosphere, Kusugak mentioned.
“[Now] there’s phrases reminiscent of laptop, helicopter, autos, all of those various things that did not exist earlier than in our society,” he mentioned.
“With the ability to do one thing reminiscent of hockey, it helps us modernize and adapt and advance our language.”
Adapting the language, by developing with phrases for sports activities like hockey, helps hold the language related for folks’s every day lives, he mentioned.
He and Ningeongan additionally communicate totally different dialects which suggests there are slight variations within the phrases they, and their viewers, use.
“As a result of there’s so many various dialects in our language, we attempt to clarify at occasions what the phrases imply,” Kusugak mentioned.
Sharing totally different dialects and producing curiosity within the language is among the advantages of a broadcast like HNIC.
“They’re watching hockey, sure, however they’re listening to our language and the way we’re utilizing it expressively, descriptively, grammatically,” Kusugak mentioned.
And it provides an opportunity to focus on the distinct facets of Inuktitut that do not all the time translate to English.
“It is arduous to elucidate as a result of we simply dwell it,” he added.
Studying and laughter
Wooden mentioned when he is commentating, he is considering of individuals like himself who knew the language after they have been children however had that disrupted, or misplaced it alongside the way in which.
“Going to residential college, it modified my mentality and notion of self. And the language wasn’t available,” he mentioned.
Prior to high school, he mentioned, everybody from his grandparents to mates spoke Cree. As a teen, Wooden labored to reclaim his language and mentioned he usually struggled with it. However even when he struggled, Wooden mentioned he tried to seek out humour and laughter within the errors.
Some hockey phrases in Plains Cree:
Bodycheck – pakamiskawaw, pakamiskatowak
Faceoff – napakiwanis
He shoots – kitāskwēw
He scores – pihtikwahēw
As he is now fluent in each Cree and English, Wooden tries to share the language with elders and youth and has recommendation for people who find themselves afraid of sounding incorrect.
“Keep in mind that the Creator gave us [laughter] as Indigenous folks and it is embedded in our languages,” Wooden mentioned.
Kusugak mentioned when he was rising up his mother and father insisted he and his siblings communicate Inuktitut within the house, and added he “cannot thank [his] mother and father and relations sufficient” for educating it to him.
Whereas he is excited to showcase his language in APTN’s first ever Inuktitut HNIC broadcast, Kusugak mentioned it might even be nice to have extra Indigenous illustration on the primary broadcast.
“You by no means know, possibly they’re going to ask considered one of us Indigenous [language] audio system as a visitor speaker or a visitor host to return in sooner or later and be a part of to perform a little section on our language.”
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