A Traveler Waits in the Stars for Those Willing to Learn How to Look

2025/06/18 Leave a comment

Interesting long read and a reminder that the constellations we know are not the only ones we see and recognize, in this case those of the Dene and Inuit:

…In the past, Dr. Cannon’s collaborators told him, only those curious enough to take their own participatory journeys, and have a personal relationship with the stars, were meant to find this out. Only then could people recognize that the Traveler they knew from childhood stories was in the stars overhead, an ancient cosmic guardian watching over the world to this day.

Among the culture bearers who contributed to the book, many agreed to help commit this intimate knowledge to paper because Dr. Cannon was approaching the subject in the traditional hands-on way. Others were motivated because they recognized that they were among the few remaining people in their subcultures or languages to hold this knowledge.

Then he found it, visible only on clearer nights, an obscure star Western astronomers call 27 Lyn.

It had taken him three and a half years.

But whose heart really was it? The more Dr. Cannon learned, the more he became convinced again that the Traveler and the man-animal constellation were the same across many Northern Dene cultures.

Eventually he posed the relationship again to Mr. Herbert, underlining his own deeper convictions and the work he had put in. This time, Mr. Herbert gave a yes: The Gwich’in Traveler figure and Yahdii were one and the same.

In the past, Dr. Cannon’s collaborators told him, only those curious enough to take their own participatory journeys, and have a personal relationship with the stars, were meant to find this out. Only then could people recognize that the Traveler they knew from childhood stories was in the stars overhead, an ancient cosmic guardian watching over the world to this day.

Among the culture bearers who contributed to the book, many agreed to help commit this intimate knowledge to paper because Dr. Cannon was approaching the subject in the traditional hands-on way. Others were motivated because they recognized that they were among the few remaining people in their subcultures or languages to hold this knowledge.

“I have not spoken about this in 20 years,” Mr. Engles told Dr. Cannon in an interview. “I’m just grateful for the opportunity to put back what my grandfather gave me.”

Looking up at the Milky Way in the night sky. Trees line the bottom of the frame.
The Milky Way, seen from central-interior Alaska.Credit…Chris Cannon

Dr. Cannon’s book aims to fill what he considers a yawning gap. Although every civilization experiences the night sky, thorough studies of how people conceptualize the cosmos have been attempted for fewer than 1 percent of human languages, Dr. Cannon estimates.

“I felt a sense that this is needed,” said John MacDonald, who conducted a survey of astronomy with Inuit Elders in the 1990s, and served as an academic reviewer for Dr. Cannon….

Source: A Traveler Waits in the Stars for Those Willing to Learn How to Look

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    Nine different ‘alphabets:’ Inuit experts meet to standardize language

    2016/02/20 Leave a comment

    A real challenge, given the power of language and connection to identity. But the likely risk of not coming up with a common agreed approach will mean greater challenges to maintain and strengthen Inuktitut:

    Two Inuit go hunting. One hands the other his rifle and the recipient says “ma’na.”

    His partner, though, has no idea what he’s just heard. The word for thanks in his dialect is “qujannamiik.”

    There are only 60,000 Inuit in Canada, but they are divided between nine different writing forms and at least that many dialects. On Friday, language experts are to meet in Ottawa to help bridge that gulf.

    “People can generally understand each other, but there are serious limitations for that understanding,” said Natan Obed, head of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Canada’s national Inuit group.

    “If we had one unified writing system, we could maximize the ability for us to read in our language and also educate our children and provide them with learning resources.”

    Inuktitut fractured because it was spoken by widely dispersed groups who rarely interacted. The language splintered further when missionaries developed writing for it.

    Syllabics, originally based on characters from Pitman shorthand, are most common in the Eastern Arctic. Roman orthography, the letters of the alphabet most of us recognize, is mostly used in the west.

    The dialects have diverged so widely that some use sounds that speakers from other parts of the North can’t even pronounce. Obed’s group produces a magazine called Inuktitut that native speakers in the far west and the far east just can’t read.

    The drive to establish a standard writing form dates back to a recommendation in a 2011 report on Inuit education. Last September, experts from the four major Inuit regions began that task and continue their work on Friday.

    Controversy is expected.

    Many argue orthography is the way to go. It’s in common use everywhere — especially on social media and the Internet, both widely used by Inuit.

    Last week, Inuktitut interpreters and translators voted at a conference in Iqaluit in favour of moving to orthography.

    But many don’t want to say goodbye to the triangles, circles and squiggles of syllabics. The debate gets more heated because the areas where Inuktitut is strongest — almost all Quebec Inuit say they’re fluent — are the same areas that use syllabics.

    “There are more Inuit talking seriously about transitioning out of syllabics into orthography,” Obed said. “(But) it is very contentious because it gets to the heart of who people are and how they’ve learned and express themselves.

    “People have equated linguistic preservation and use to syllabics,” Obed said. “Syllabics attachment is based on the overarching history and the fact that syllabics allowed people to retain their language and their culture at a time of colonization and great upheaval.”

    Source: Nine different ‘alphabets:’ Inuit experts meet to standardize language – Macleans.ca

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