Grammar » 3 » Where are you from?

The affix -miutaq- means, someone who comes from the place described by the root of the word:

Iqalummiutaq   someone from Iqaluit
Kimmirummiutaq   someone from Kimmirut
Kinngarmiutaq   someone from Kinngait
Panniqtuurmiutaq   someone from Panniqtuuq
Qikiqtarjuarmiutaq   someone from Qikiqtarjuaq

As we see in the above examples, -miutaq can appear at the end of a word. But we can also build onto it to talk about different people. We do this by adding the verb -u- to the the end of -miutaq- and follow it with a verb ending:

Iqalummiutaujunga I am from Iqaluit.
Qikiqtarjuarmiutaujunga I am from Qikiqtarjuaq.

We can easily change the verb ending to talk about different people:

Iqalummiutaujuguk  We (2) are from Iqaluit.
Qikiqtarjuarmiutaujusi You (3+) are from Qikiqtarjuaq.

 

We can also add -miutaq- to the question root nami- (meaning where?) to create a question:

nami + miutaq + u + vit? = namimiutauvit?
  Where are you from?