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Talk:The Jerry Cans

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"Ahead by a Century" in Inuttitut?

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The article (and its reference) say that the Tragically Hip cover "Ahead by a Century" was in Inuttitut, which is the Labradorian Innu language, but they are from Iqaluit, and their other songs are in Inuktitut (with a k). Very possible the reference made a typo, but can anyone verify this? FUNgus guy (talk) 10:49, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there are at least two other gold-standard Canadian music sources besides Exclaim! also saying Inuttitut: CBC Music ([1]) and A.Side TV ([2]). And all three sources refer to the Inuttitut dialect, not the Inuttitut language, so it's not possible for it to just be a mere typo for Inuktitut — to be an error, it would have to be a much deeper error made by people who actually knew or researched the difference and still picked the wrong word anyway. The CBC source even goes with an unmistakable "Inuttitut, an Inuktitut dialect", and A.Side actually directly quotes Nancy Mike using "Inuttitut" herself.
I can't find a source which specifically explains why they would use Nunatsiavut dialect rather than their more usual Iqaluit dialect for it, but maybe there was a political reason I don't know the context for, or maybe it was just easier to write translated lyrics that scanned properly — since the lyrics have to stay confined to the original melody, it can be much harder to effectively translate a song into some languages than others, and the fact that Inuttitut has a significant trove of German loanwords in it might have made it easier to translate some of the lyrics in a way that still fit the rhythmic and melodic confines of a song being translated from English (which is after all a Germanic language.) But that's just a speculative guess, not something I can prove or source as definitively true.
By the way, the Innu aren't Labrador's Inuit — they're a separate First Nations group in southern Labrador and eastern Quebec whose language is part of the Cree language family, not the Inuit group from Northern Labrador who speak Inuttitut. Bearcat (talk) 15:33, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I'll leave it as is. And yes, I meant Inuk, not Innu. I'm the one making typos, apparently. FUNgus guy (talk) 06:58, 22 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]