Abbaqaqqit?

Before it acquired the connotation of city kids asking for "half-a-dollar", was the original meaning of this phrase, "Can I have half?"

What are the other pre-suppositions underlying Inuktitut sharing protocols? Or even trading? Is there an assumption of exchanging only in proportion to what is actually available at any given moment as opposed to grabbing control or hoarding?

Qallunait often deride a failure to hoard as a failure to plan, but what if the Inuktitut intent were that sharing/distribution should be measured only in proportion to what is actually available? What if that rule were essential to survival during cycles of diminishing resources?

How do we distinguish between hoarding and storage? Is the former inherently unsustainable, eventually endangering the survival of the whole?

After a recent plentiful hunt and community feast, local Inuit took from the remains only what they or their family could immediately use. They filled just one small (a meal's worth) plastic Northern Store bag. Nobody showed up with a 20 gallon cooler on a wheelbarrow!

Might there be similar metaphors and analogies for finance and climate based on Inuktitut technology?

A qallunaattitut wooden sled is made rigid using nails and screws, but is so brittle it disintegrates within a few meters of pounding in the pack ice. Conversely, viewed from behind, an Inuktitut qamutiik has independent runners that predate torsion-air suspension by 4,000 years. Each runner navigates its own path through the uneven ice thanks to flexible ugjuk-hide lines that allow the whole qamutiik to flex and give with the terrain.

Qallunait weld ships with inches-thick steel plates to fight the ice, yet the hulls still split and rip apart in conditions where an Inuktitut qajaq or umiak gives and flexes, once again thanks to knots of flexible hide allowing skin covered frames to bend and slip through the ice.

In the case of "Abbaqaqqit?", is the older connotation "Let's share?" What is the embedded ISV? "Remove from circulation for personal use only that which can be sustained by the whole system?"

And what about "AKILITSAQ" . . . Are there a better English equivalents than 'owe'? Is there perhaps a term with more connotations of mutual interdependence rather than one-way charity or debt? Can you suggest some synonyms and their subtle differences?

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