Inuktitut Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions works in Inuktitut for American clients with a northern connection: an estate or family matter reaching into Nunavut or Nunavik, an adoption file, a deposition, an archive or research project, a hospital appointment for a visiting elder. Inuktitut is an official language in Nunavut, which means real public-information translation demand exists, and it also means the documents in your file may be trilingual rather than in Inuktitut alone. We say which before quoting.

Last reviewed September 12, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Language Solutions

Nunavut’s Official Languages Act recognises the Inuit Language alongside English and French, and gives residents the right to receive territorial government services and to appear before the territory’s courts in the official language they choose. The Inuit Language Protection Act goes further and requires organizations in Nunavut, private sector included, to make public-facing information and services available in Inuktut. That is a translation obligation written into statute, and it is why Inuktitut has a working professional translation sector where most languages this rare do not.

• Certified translations prepared to meet USCIS requirements
• Human linguists only, matched to the subject
• Fixed written quote within 60 minutes in business hours
• One office in New York, linguists in every state

Inuktitut Translation for Government and Public Information

This is the largest and steadiest half of Inuktitut work anywhere, and unlike most of the small languages on this site it is genuinely read. Nunavut has an Inuktitut-literate public, schools that teach in it and a government translation apparatus, so a printed Inuktitut version of a notice, a health leaflet, a safety instruction or a consent form does the job a printed translation is supposed to do.

American clients reach this work from two directions. Organizations operating in the north, in mining, shipping, research or health, that have to publish in Inuktitut. And US programs serving Inuit visitors or students who want material in the language. Tell us the region and the script and we will produce it accordingly.

Inuktitut Syllabics and Roman Spelling on a Certified Translation

Two writing systems are in live use. Nunavut and Nunavik write mainly in syllabics; Labrador and the western Arctic use roman letters. In 2019 Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami adopted Inuktut Qaliujaaqpait, a unified roman orthography developed by Inuit language experts, as an auxiliary system alongside the regional ones rather than a replacement for them.

The practical consequence lands on names. A name written in syllabics can be romanised two or three ways, an older document may use a spelling nobody would choose today, and a passport holds exactly one version. We keep the syllabic form beside the English, spell personal names to match the travel document a filing depends on, and note the other spellings in a translator’s note instead of choosing quietly between them.

Certified Inuktitut Translation for US Estate, Adoption and Court Files

Most of an Inuktitut file is not in Inuktitut. A Nunavut birth certificate from Vital Statistics carries its headings in Inuktitut, English and French while the registered particulars print in roman letters, so it needs no translation for a US filing. A Nunavik record comes from Quebec’s Directeur de l’état civil and is frequently French, which is a French job.

What genuinely needs an Inuktitut translator is the layer around those documents: a sworn statement written in syllabics, a hamlet council letter, correspondence in a custom adoption file, an older community record. Every item comes back in full, with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy. The terms are on certified translation, and adoption documents covers the filings these most often sit inside.

Which Inuktitut? Dialect Regions on a Translation or Interpreting Job

The language spans roughly a dozen main dialects across the Arctic. A South Baffin linguist can work with a speaker from Nunavik or the Kivalliq, and vocabulary drops out along the way. Where a matter allows us to choose, we assign by region. More often there is one person available, and in that case we tell you which dialect they speak and let you judge whether it is close enough for the setting rather than presenting everyone as interchangeable.

For written work the question is simpler but still real: a text produced for Baffin readers is not automatically the right text for Kivalliq ones, and a translation into roman orthography is no use to a reader who only reads syllabics.

Inuktitut Interpreting for US Courts and Hospitals

Volume here is thin and we do not pretend otherwise. The matters we see are cross-border: a custody dispute, an estate where the deceased lived in Nunavut, a deposition where one witness is more exact in Inuktitut than in English. A hospital appointment for an older visitor comes up occasionally, and a provider taking federal funds owes that patient an interpreter at no cost under 45 CFR 92.201.

Delivery is almost always by phone or video, which is less a compromise than the only way to reach a language with so few interpreters in this country. No state certifies court interpreters in Inuktitut, so a judge qualifies the interpreter on the record, and Inuktitut is one of the scarce languages courts approach us about when nobody local can supply it. Prism takes those bookings privately and is on no court’s vendor list. See video remote interpreting.

Inuktitut Translation Cost and Lead Time

Running text into or out of Inuktitut is quoted by the source word, public-information sets per project, and handwritten syllabics after we have seen the pages, because reading the hand is the work. Interpreting is hourly and remote, so travel rarely appears on the quote. Guide ranges sit on the pricing page.

Notice helps more here than anywhere else on this site. The pool is small and the good linguists are busy with Nunavut government and corporate work, so a scarce dialect at short notice is the one request we regularly cannot fill. When that is the answer, you get it straight away rather than on the morning of the hearing.

Questions we get asked