Inuit languages — and how to preserve them in a culture increasingly dominated by English — are the focus of a Nunavut summit this week drawing experts from several circumpolar nations.

About 200 delegates from Canada, Greenland and the United States are in Iqaluit for the Nunavut Language Summit, which began Tuesday and runs through Friday.

The Nunavut government organized the conference because it wants to implement new laws aimed at making Inuit languages, including Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun, more prominent in the daily lives of Nunavummiut.

While about 90 per cent of Inuit in Canada still speak Inuktitut, its use has been slowly declining, according to Statistics Canada. Inuit make up 84 per cent of Nunavut's population of about 30,000.

"Language is very important because it defines who you are," Louis Tapardjuk, Nunavut's minister of languages, told CBC News before the summit began.

"[The] Inuktitut language, there's no other such language throughout the world. It's only spoken by those that live in the circumpolar region, so it is something to be proud of, something that you can call your own."

Healing gathering

The summit began with a "healing gathering" in which Inuit speakers from a wide range of ages and backgrounds spoke about their own experiences, often as students forbidden from speaking their native tongue at school.

"My father, when he was asked or told by the schooling authorities to speak English to us, did not," Edna MacLean, an Inupiat delegate from Alaska, told delegates.

"He claimed that English was not his language, so he refused to speak English. And since Inupiaq was his language, he would speak with us."

Raymond Ningeocheak of the Nunavut land claims organization Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. said Inuit in Nunavut must not work in isolation to preserve their languages.

Speaking in Inuktitut, he said Inuit must stop arguing over each other's regional dialects and work together to keep the language alive.

In 2008, the Nunavut government passed a revamped Official Languages Act and the Inuit Language Protection Act, with the latter offering Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun the most powerful protection among Canada's aboriginal languages.

A series of roundtable discussions about the laws have been held in several Nunavut regions, but this week's summit also includes delegates from outside Nunavut.

Tapardjuk said the discussions will guide the government's implementation of the new laws.

The topics to be discussed include:

• Language development in children and youth.
• Language leadership, or how people can be good language role models.
• Standardizing the Inuit language.
• The Inuit languages in workplaces, media, culture and government.