Inupiaq to English Dictionary

Examples of nouns in the Absolutive Case:

tent (singular): tupiq, tents (dual): tuppak, tents (plural): tupqit

car (singular) qamun, cars (dual): qamutik, cars (plural): qamutit

house (singular): iglu, houses (dual): igluk, houses, plural: iglut

Sentence examples with the Absolutive case:

Tuppak qanittuk. The tents (2) are close by.

Nutqaqtitkaa qamun. She stopped the car.

niġiruŋaaqtuq “he said ‘I am eating’”

verb stem niġi “to eat”, ending ruŋa “I”, suffix -.q- “to say” --->

verb stem niġiruŋaaq “say I eat”, ending tuq “she/he/it”

The resultant verb stem can acquire other post bases.

niġiruŋaaġniraa “she reported that he said ‘I am eating’”

There are three kinds of stems in Iñupiaq: verb stems, noun stems, and demonstrative stems. 

An Iñupiaq stem may be either basic or extended. An extended stem contains one or more postbases, and a basic stem does not contain postbases. The example niġiruq “she is eating” has a basic verb stem niġi- “to eat” and a verb ending ruq “she/he/it”.

niġiñiaŋitpalliqsuq “she probably will not eat”

verb stem niġi- “to eat”, postbase +ñiaq “will”, postbase -ŋit “not”, postbase +palliq “probably”, ending +suq “she/he/it”

An Iñupiaq noun in singular form acts as a stem to which postbases may be added.

Noun and verb stems may acquire nominalizing or verbalizing postbases. 

igluqpaniktuq “she acquired a big house”

Iñupiaq is a polysynthetic language. This means that an Iñupiaq word may be changed with the addition of derivational and inflectional affixes (postbases, verb endings, or enclitics) to create a new word. In the following example, nanuq “polar bear” is a word. It is a word because it represents a complete thought. That is, when the word nanuq is uttered, there is no question that it represents a polar bear. When the postbase -k- “to acquire” is added to the word nanuq, it changes the nominal word into a verb stem nannuk- “to kill a polar bear,” which now requires an inflectional ending. When the inflectional ending “tuq” is added, it becomes a new word, nannuktuq, a verb that translates into the sentence “she or he killed a polar bear.”