I’ve posted on this site many times using the name Qimmik. I’ve decided to change my user name to Hylander.
Qimmik was the name of my dog, whom I had to put to sleep in January of this year. “Qimmik” is an approximation to the word for “dog” in the Inuit language. My dog Qimmik was a Siberian husky. I wanted to give him an Arctic name, but the word for “dog” in the language of the Siberian Chukchi people was too unpronounceable, so I settled on Qimmik. The q phoneme in the language of the Inuit, incidentally, is a velar pronounced further back in the throat than the k phoneme. I think that in some dialects the word would be transcribed “qimmiq”.
Hylander is very close to a Latinized Greek translation of my real surname.
I will try to keep my Qimmik account open, but I’ll post under the name Hylander and identify myself as the former Qimmik for a while. I’m hoping the Administrator won’t punish me for this.
Here is Robinson Jeffers – a Greek and Latin scholar as well as a poet – about his dog’s passing. I visited the house in Carmel earlier this year, and saw the window and grave referred to in the poem.
Qimmik/Hylander
Sorry to hear of the loss of your dog. For the past three decades, my wife and I have raised Canadian Inuit Sled Dogs - the indigenous dogs that the nomadic Inuit depended on in the high arctic and Greenland for countless centuries before snowmobiles put an end to all that in a little over ten years. Thanks to you, jeidsath, for linking to the poem by Robinson Jeffers, which was a touching tribute to a much loved dog, one that most dog owners can relate to. I have lost many a beloved canine friend and have a well-tended dog cemetery on my property to attest to this.
Michael
Thanks to all of you for your kind words. I requested this change some time ago–it has finally come through.
I’ve been on vacation for nearly two weeks with my new dog, Dakota, an Alaskan Malamute, or so I think–he was a stray I adopted shortly after I lost Qimmik, so his parentage is technically obscure.
I’m very sorry to hear about your dog. Condolences. Mine’s here on the couch next to me; I occasionally think about how she’ll be gone one day and it’s too much to bear.
As someone with great interest in the lesser studied languages out there–those of North America, the Paleosiberian ones, those of the Caucasus–you piqued my interest when you mentioned the Chukchi word for “dog” being nigh unpronounceable. After a little research, I found the word: ы’ттьын ([ʔǝttʔǝn] in IPA). I can’t blame you for passing up on that one!
After I put Qimmik to sleep, I adopted a Malamute stray who was being fostered from a shelter. The shelter had named him “Dakota,” which I think is a name frequently given to dogs. I thought about giving him a native Alaskan name–there are some here:
Heh, I can relate. My dog’s name is Caoimhe, an Irish name pronounced nothing like how it’s spelled (['kivə], not [kau-im-hi]). I didn’t mind explaining the pronunciation at first, but after a while I decided for most situations I’d just tell people it’s Kiva. That’s how her name’s written at the vet’s office, for example
If I had a Malamute I’d probably give it a Tlingit or Yupik name
