This is a dictionary of word-forming suffixes that documents the Inuktitut dialect spoken by the Utkuhiksalingmiut people of the central Canadian Arctic. It is the first of two Utkuhiksalingmiut dictionaries that the authors intend to produce. The second will be a wordbase dictionary, consisting of simple words formed on all of the bases (roots) found in Jean Briggs's extensive research database of Utkuhiksalingmiut words. This volume, the postbase dictionary, lists the suffixes used to form words in Inuktitut. An Inuktitut word often contains as much information as an English sentence, and an understanding of how postbase suffixes are used to form these longer words is essential to a full understanding of the Inuit language. Through complex real-life examples and detailed notes, this dictionary aims to show the richness of how postbases are used in the Utkuhiksalingmiut dialect.

This staggering book was 50 years in the making. In 1963, Jean Briggs travelled alone to Chantrey Inlet to begin her anthropology fieldwork in the Utkuhiksalik region of the Northwest Territories (now Nunavut). She became the adopted daughter of a family in a small camp, and in order to communicate, she began writing down as many words as possible that she heard spoken around her. This simple necessity was the genesis of this book, which is both a unique language archive and Briggs's expression of gratitude to the Utkuhiksalingmiut who assisted her five decades of work.

Co-authored by Alana Johns and Conor Cook, this highly detailed volume of Utkuhiksalingmiut post-base suffixes will astonish and instruct those with an interest in linguistics and Inuktitut.

In English and Inuktitut.