Alaska town votes to change its name to Inupiat Eskimo name [Barrow]

Associated Press ^ | Oct. 14, 2016 11:13 PM EDT | Rachel D’Oro

[Olog-hai]

Residents in the nation’s northernmost community have voted to change the name of the Alaska town to its traditional Inupiat Eskimo name.

A slight majority of voters in the largely Inupiat city of Barrow approved efforts to change the community’s name to Utqiagvik (oot-GHAR-vik) in their local election Oct. 4. The vote was tight, with 381 in favor of the name change and 375 against it.

“Basically, it reinforces the cultural identity of the people,” said Mayor Bob Harcharek, who is not Native. He noted that early day missionaries set up schools in the area where students were forbidden to speak in their native language and were punished if they did so. “It caused some social psychological problems.”

Barrow City Council member Qaiyaan Harcharek, the mayor’s son, introduced a local ordinance in August that began the process ratified by voters. The younger Harcharek is Inupiat on his mother’s side. …

[alexander_busek]

Nothing like pushing children to learn a stone age language to catapult those children into the future...

I didn't realize that Inuit was older, per se, than English. Can you cite any sources to support that assertion?

You do realize that bilingualism is not a handicap, right? That bilinguals actually use more of their brain?

Are you opposed to teaching Ancient Greek in schools?

Regards,

[dr_lew]

Barrow's population was 4,683 at the 2000 census and 4,212 at the 2010 census. In July 2013, the population estimate was 4,373.

So what are they after here? Oblivion?

[goldstategop]

Its on the Arctic Ocean. Its as far north as you can live on the earth.

You have a perpetual midnight sun in the summer and near astronomical night in the winter.

Not a tourist destination.

[PhiloBedo]

When Quinn-the-Eskimo get here, everybody’s going to jump for joy.

[dr_lew]

So, are they gonna rip up the airstrip and revert to their previous way of life?

I don't get this. I don't.

[nickedknack]

Peking
Bombay
Saigon
Ceylon
Burma
Barrow

[Does so]

Rhodesia

[dljordan]

The only people not allowed to have a cultural identity are white people.

[Deplorable American1776]

The new name means, ‘Someone hit keyboard while blindfolded.’

[Rebelbase]

"It'll always be Barrow to me".