How should the ferry Kamutik W be pronounced? Not the way most people would assume

There's a lot of talk about the Kamutik W, the new ferry serving the northern coast of Labrador, and some of that talk is about how the ship's name should be said out loud.

The ferry largely services coastal communities in Nunatsiavut, the Inuit land in northern Labrador, and people there would like to see it pronounced according to their own dialect.

"The only ones who are saying it with accuracy are the ones from the North coast of Labrador," Nain resident Noah Nochasak said while riding the vessel for the first time.

While the pronunciation and spelling of the word may differ in other Inuit regions, Inuttut — the dialect of Inuktitut spoken in Nunatsiavut — spells the word Kamutik with a capital K.

The upper case K in Inuttut is pronounced closer to the sound of an H.

"It's perplexing when you pick up the phone to make a reservation or you talk to a staff member on board the Kamutik ferry to hear it," Nochasak said.

"It's an Inuit ferry and you should do your best to say it in an Inuit way."

Nochasak did his best to correct the pronunciation of people on the ship, while others took to social media to correct people's pronunciation.

"Saying it correctly, it doesn't take much effort and it would make people maybe feel more at home if they could say that."

'One of the easiest words'

Interpreter Andrea Webb, who is passionate about her mother tongue, has another perspective on the word — and on the ship itself.

"It's one of the easiest words in our language," Webb said.

She disagrees that H should be used as a substitute for the capital K. She describes it as a soft K and calls the sound guttural. She said the last "k" in Kamutik is lower case and should therefore be pronounced as a "k" would be in the English language.

She says while other Inuit regions would spell the word with a "Q" or syllabics, they all respect the differences in their dialects.

"It's very beautiful having your own dialect," Webb said. "We don't have any trouble understanding each other, we just respect each other's dialect."

And while she does take issue with the mispronunciation of the word, she also disagrees with it as the chosen name for the vessel in the first place.

"It's not a Kamutik and it should be an appropriate name — a good title, that has to do with water," Webb said.

"It's important to us as Inuit that the Kallunâk (white person) use the proper titles if they're going to have an Inuktitut name on something."

Webb prefers the name Motavak, which means "large steamer."

"That would have been a proper title," she said.

All aboard

Tag along with reporter Jacob Barker on the first sailing of the ferry Kamutik W in the video below.

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