A documentary by the Canadian Studies Center and UW Language Learning Center, ‘A Kabluna at the University of Washington’ is now publicly available for viewing and sharing.
A Kabluna is a documentary about Inuktitut Language Scholar Sydney Tate Mallon (“Mick”), his life and partnership with the University of Washington. The film follows Mick as he visits the UW to meet his students during his final year of teaching in 2019, where he shares about his life and work.
Sydney Tate Mallon (“Mick”) was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1933 and immigrated to Canada in 1954. He established the Eskimo Language School in Rankin Inlet in 1968 and joined the Eastern Arctic Teacher Education Program in Iqaluit in 1980. He also taught Inuktitut for Arctic College, McGill, and other institutions. He wrote the first textbook on the language, Introductory Inuktitut, in collaboration with Alexina Kublu (published by McGill Queen’s University Press in 1991). In 2008, Mick was awarded the Order of Canada for his “pivotal role in preserving and revitalizing the Inuktitut language.” Mick taught Inuktitut at the University of Washington, Seattle from the Summer of 2005 to his last cohort in 2019.
(71 minutes)