Birthday of Abraham Okpik (Inuk)
Jan. 12, 1929
PHOTO COURTESY CHARLES GIMPEL/ LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA / R10187-924-2-E ABE OKPIK AT HOME, FROBISHER BAY, NWT, [NOW IQALUIT, NUNAVUT]
Abe Okpik was an Inuk community leader and advocate for the Inuktitut language. He is best remembered for his work on Project Surname, in which he sought to replace the identification numbers assigned to the Inuit in Northern Canada with surnames.
Although some Inuit are critical of his work on assigning surnames to Inuit peoples, his intentions were to create a more humanizing process than the Inuit Disc Numbers in practice at the time. In the 1970's he moved to the eastern Arctic where he became the administrator of a school, the Ukiivik Residence.
He also began teaching Inuktitut at the high-school level. Focusing on promoting the Inuit language, Okpik worked with the Inuit Cultural Institute (ICI) to create a new and simplified Inuktitut writing system with 45 letters. This form of the syllabary was officially adopted in 1974 and is still used today.
Okpik worked extensively as a translator, both in person for important legal issues such as for Judge Thomas Berger during the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, and in writing as he translated books from English to Inuktitut, which became some of the first publications in the Inuit language.
He was also the first Inuk to sit on what is now the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.
Although some Inuit are critical of his work on assigning surnames to Inuit peoples, his intentions were to create a more humanizing process than the Inuit Disc Numbers in practice at the time. In the 1970's he moved to the eastern Arctic where he became the administrator of a school, the Ukiivik Residence.
He also began teaching Inuktitut at the high-school level. Focusing on promoting the Inuit language, Okpik worked with the Inuit Cultural Institute (ICI) to create a new and simplified Inuktitut writing system with 45 letters. This form of the syllabary was officially adopted in 1974 and is still used today.
Okpik worked extensively as a translator, both in person for important legal issues such as for Judge Thomas Berger during the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, and in writing as he translated books from English to Inuktitut, which became some of the first publications in the Inuit language.
He was also the first Inuk to sit on what is now the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.