In celebration of Inuktut Language Month, Inuit Uqausinginnik Taiguusiliuqtiit and Nunavut Arctic College are pleased to announce the release of the Inuktut Spelling Standards Guide. This is a brief guide to Inuktut (Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun) spelling standards (ISS). ISS were developed by the Inuit Cultural Institute in 1976 to address inconsistencies in Inuktut spelling and ensure that there were consistent rules for writing Inuktut.

This guide is available to all Nunavummiut to help facilitate the use of standardized spelling rules and to produce consistent Inuktut documents.

Consistency in spelling is very important when producing documents in Inuktut. It allows Inuktut materials to be produced for all of Nunavut. It allows people to correctly predict the pronunciation of Inuktut words from the way they are written. By using a consistent set of symbols and spelling rules for all dialects, these Inuktut spelling standards make communication between regions and dialects easier while making the distinctive features of each dialect clearer.

IUT and NAC thank the Department of Culture and Heritage and the Department of Education who participated in the creation of this guide.

Copies of the guide will be sent to schools, Community Learning Centres, libraries, language stakeholders, government departments and anyone else who requests a copy.  A copy is also available for download on the IUT website at  https://www.taiguusiliuqtiit.ca. For additional copies please contact Solomon Awa, sawa1@gov.nu.ca.