People who have pride in their language feel very strongly about their dialect. Luckily, however, it can be argued that there is no need to standardize the basic core of the language. Experience over the last 30 years has shown that sophisticated Inuit across Nunavut can readily communicate with each other, either at formal conferences or in informal social situations. They make automatic minor adaptations to adjust to each other's patterns. Where standardization is necessary is in the development of technical terms, and that is usually not such an emotional issue.
Survival is a far more serious issue than standardization.
A few years ago it was reported that, given the statistics, one would expect only Cree and Inuktitut to have a chance of surviving another 100 years in Canada. That opinion, however, is no grounds for complacency. After 31 years of broadcasting, Iqaluit's Jonah Kelly signed off from CBC North radio in 1997. Inuktitut language programming has been essential to the survival of the language Today, very few native children in western Nunavut speak, or even understand, their native language. And it is the children who count.