“We expect it will develop and be influenced by ASL,” he said. MacDougall says bringing deaf Inuit together is extremely important to strengthen the language. Nanooklook attended school in Vancouver for 13 years, where she learned ASL, while her brother Phillip went south to school but returned home and learned Inuktitut signing from a deaf elder in the community.Īlthough she doesn’t know ISL herself, participating in the focus group has made Nanooklook enthusiastic about the language. She grew up in Rankin Inlet as the eldest deaf child with two deaf brothers and a hearing impaired sibling in a household that came to rely on finger spelling to communicate. “I felt very lonely in my family until I started teaching them sign language,” said Louisa Nanooklook through an interpreter.

It was then that ASL interpreters also were introduced to the territorial education system and interpreters were brought from the south to teach deaf Inuit students and their families, but success varied between communities. It is only in the last 10 to 15 years that sign language has been popularized as an accepted educational system in the South. He says that Inuit communities have always been very supportive and active in learning ISL to communicate, but that its development has been hindered because the language has gone unrecognized and has been suppressed by the government.īut that is not unique to the North. MacDougall has an intimate understanding of the importance of securing a language for deaf Inuit and their families, having been raised by two deaf parents and having American Sign Language (ASL) as his first language, although he is hearing.Īccording to MacDougall, one in 1,000 Inuit is deaf, and a high number are hearing impaired. “It’s Canada’s newest language in Canada’s newest territory,” said Jamie MacDougall, the founding president of the Canadian Deafness Research and Training Institute.

Paint the town red saying