Inuit communities in northern Canada, which speak the traditional languages, often find it difficult to fully understand or participate in the international environmental discussions. While they live close to the land and have a very good understanding of their environment, they do not necessarily think of it in the same ways as others. Accordingly, there are no standard words for “climate change”, “greenhouse gas”, or “biodiversity.”
So far, Inuit leaders, interpreters, and translators have improvised. They can describe the terms, but even then their words have multiple meanings. So, “climate change” could mean “weather changes” or “changes in the ice conditions” or something else.
In order to improve communications, the Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (an Inuit organisation) co-sponsored a workshop in October 2005 to develop a glossary of 200 words relating to climate change with precise equivalents in English, as well as definitions of the terms.
For more information, see http://www.tunngavik.com/