Canadian symbol for travellers gets spell check.
by Bud Jorgensen

Now that CycleCanada has a new jersey with an Inukshuk motif, an inevitable question is about the spelling — Inukshuk or Inuksuk. The government of Nunavut uses Inuksuk. But the pronunciation of that last syllable in English in popular usage is shook.

We thought about that choice for a long time before we settled on Inukshuk. In early versions of the sketches for the design, we did have Inuksuk. A lot of expatriate Canadians have our jerseys and we came to the conclusion that their fellow riders in the U.S. and abroad probably would pronounce the last syllable as suck. At the end of the design process we concluded it was better to stick to Inukshuk because it is phonetic.

Usage seems to be split rather broadly. In researching the word, I found essays by Inuit artists who used both spellings in the same essay. Common usage — the language of the street — seems to prefer Inukshuk. Scholarly usage, no doubt influenced by government convention, seems to prefer Inuksuk. I view government attempts to be official arbiters of language as an affectation of the French.

Official spellings of Inuktitut words is a bit of an oxymoron because it is a language with a strong and still vibrant oral tradition. The written tradition is quite recent and owes much to the hubris of missionaries. The Inuktitut alphabet is comprised of symbols that are a type of hieroglyph. The syllabary was created by missionaries in the 19th century and it is said that they used Pitman shorthand as the model. The goal, of course, would be a Bible in the local language.

A sub-argument on this topic is whether Inukshuk has become an English word. Poaching from other languages is an English specialty. If there is a certifiable spelling for Inukshuk, it would be in the Inuktitut symbols, not a Roman alphabet.

Languages are living things and the vernacular usually prevails. After more than 35 years of working with words professionally, I have a perspective on this process. In Canada, there has been a steady drift from British usage to American usage and calling a building in a Canadian town the XYZ Center probably would go unnoticed today by the majority. At CycleCanada, we still use centre and colour. I've given up on program but my wife still uses programme. Similarly, the usage jury is still out on Inukshuk.

In that connection, Wikipedia is a straw in the wind. Wikipedia is a unique resources that goes to the central nature of the web. The internet is diluting the power of intermediaries, and in some cases making them redundant. In the word business, intermediaries are organizations like Oxford University Press and Merriam-Webster. They used to be pre-eminent authorities in deciding what is correct English. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia and anyone can contribute. It’s now closing in on a half million entries. Taking a page from the Volkswagen as the people’s car, it is the people’s knowledge base. It reflects popular usage and evolves with public perceptions of what is important to know about. A search of Inuksuk on Wikipedia produces a redirect to Inukshuk.

Every organization that works with words has a style book and I have several on my book shelf. Usage varies from book to book. In the CycleCanada style book the correct spelling is Inukshuk.