A summit to encourage Northern and Arctic literature | The International Decade of Indigenous Languages

Around sixty authors, cultural stakeholders and scientists met in Greenland in mid-September to find ways to promote the translation and promotion, on the international scene, of works written in Nordic languages mainly spoken by indigenous communities.

The objective may seem utopian, but Juaaka Lyberth does not budge. Award-winning writer, theater man, successful singer and politician, the president of the Greenlandic Writers (the Greenlandic Writers’ Association) worked hard to welcome guests and participants to the Northern and Arctic Small Language Literature Summit, which took place in Nuuk from September 19-22.

In itself, this meeting was not a first for the organization, but the novelty this year was the space offered to writers who are not from this autonomous territory dependent on Denmark. It got bigger and bigger as the preparations progressed.he says on the phone.

On the menu, there were workshops, conferences and discussions on ways to advance these literatures. Participants come [pour la plupart] communities that have few members and speak languages ​​with even fewer speakers [que nous]explains Mr. Lyberth.

The Greenlandic Writers’ Association, which has existed for several decades, is therefore wondering how to promote the presence of its literature in the world. Since the Greenlandic population numbers just over 56,000 people, Mr. Lyberth believes that the survival of Greenlandic literature and, by extension, its language necessarily requires increasing its influence.

Among the invited speakers, there are of course Greenlanders (the name given to the Greenlanders with Inuit roots) as well as the Sami from Norway, an author from the Faroe Islands and an Inupiaq from Alaska, without forgetting Daniel Chartier, full professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal and director of the International Research Laboratory on the Imagination of the North, Winter and the Arctic.

This laboratory, founded by Mr. Chartier, is considered an important center of expertise that connects Nordic cultures while promoting their influence on a local and national scale.

Survive through export

MM. Lyberth and Chartier also took advantage of this meeting to announce a partnership concluded earlier this year between their two organizations in order to promote the translation and especially the circulation of Greenlandic literature abroad.

Logically, the goal is obviously not for French or German readers to learn Greenlandic to appreciate these works but rather to offer writers the chance to continue their work in their own language knowing that they will have the opportunity to be translated – and shine – and not only in Danish.

The partnership between the Greenlandic Writers and the International Research Laboratory on the Imagination of the North, Winter and the Arctic is therefore directly in line with this objective. The Greenlanders see French as an opening to the world, a way of getting out of control [culturelle] you Danemarkexplains Daniel Chartier.

He recalls that the Quebec cultural community has been able to develop expertise in the export of local literature while having established over time defense mechanisms of it to enable him to make his way abroad.

Take the time to do things right

Time is also of primordial importance for Juaaka Lyberth. Despite the growth in interest in Greenlandic literature (notably with the success experienced abroad by the author Niviaq Korneliussen, who wrote her first novel in Greenlandic before translating it herself into Danish), he notes that the number of books published in Greenland has not increased in a decade. Our goal would eventually be to publish not just 25 or 30 but closer to 300.

As a small community, if we want to preserve our culture, we must first write it in our languageexplains Juaaka Lyberth. We have our own literature, myths and legends of yesteryear, like Inuit stories, but we also have modern literature. Nowadays, people write not only works of fiction but also essays, children’s books and textbooks for education.

It is important that small communities [nordiques] work together, otherwise we will be destroyed by the English language.

The ability to translate directly from Greenlandic to other languages, such as French, is a goal that could possibly be achieved if Mr. Lyberth’s wishes could be granted.

However, for him, even if there is an emergency to save some of the Arctic languages ​​considered vulnerable, such as Greenlandic, we must still take the time to do things well and move forward in a natural way.

A primordial but complex question: translation

The big problem for the influence of texts written in these small northern languages, according to Mr. Chartier, is translation. The first difficulty is that you have to find a translator. And since they are few in number, you often have to go through intermediate languages.

In the case of works written in Greenlandic, we must therefore go through a Danish translation, the language of the colonizer, before being able to adapt the text again. And, of course, the more editing work that has to be done, the higher the costs.

Despite everything, Daniel Chartier deplores the fact that interest in Greenlandic literature is practically absent in Denmark, even if the majority of works are translated there, hence the strategy of going to promote writers elsewhere, whether in book fairs and festivals in Quebec, France, Germany and India.

The second difficulty, again according to Daniel Chartier, is the untranslatability of certain concepts. He gives as an example the Greenlandic word they. It is partly the territory, but it is as if it were a matrix directly linked to humans, who cannot exist without ithe explains.

The interest of these small languages ​​is that they offer concepts that we sometimes cannot even imagine. [dans d’autres langues].

Since the goal of the summit is to include not only Arctic languages ​​but also those of the North, Daniel Chartier would welcome the possibility that indigenous writers, such as the Innu, could one day participate in a future edition of this literary summit.

An opinion shared by Juaaka Lyberth, who says he is open to the idea of ​​discussing the presentation of this literary summit in other countries in order to establish new partnerships and continue to nourish international interest in these northern literatures. and the Arctic.