I was so intrigued by the word for the internet that was created by the territory of Nunavut in Canada, that I  posted about it here in my personal blog: Ikiaqqivik. I’m re-posting the quote from the Canadian Journal of Communications where this was mentioned. Soukup’s article, by the way, is terrific.

When the time came a few years ago to find an Inuktitut term for the word “Internet,” Nunavut’s former Official Languages Commissioner, Eva Aariak, chose ikiaqqivik, or “traveling through layers”. The word comes from the concept describing what a shaman does when asked to find out about living or deceased relatives or where animals have disappeared to: travel across time and space to find answers. According to the elders, shamans used to travel all over the world: to the bottom of the ocean, to the stratosphere, and even to the moon. In fact, the 1969 moon landing did not impress Inuit elders. They simply said, “We’ve already been there!” (Minogue, 2005, n.p.). The word is also an example of how Inuit are mapping traditional concepts, values, and metaphors to make sense of contemporary realities and technologies. – Katarina Soukup in The Canadian Journal of Communication