Summary
Sila is an Inuit word and concept that holds together what English keeps apart: weather, the world outside, and mind or consciousness. Climate Words’ entry, based on an interview with Biinia C. Frederiksen, calls it “a pan-Inuit word with an extensive range of meanings”, which depend on who is speaking and in what context. For some Inuit groups Sila personifies the weather; the phrase ‘sila maligdlugo’ means “according to the world order”.
It isn’t a psychological construct, and it doesn’t reduce to a definition. The same entry says Inuit knowledge flows where Western language demands exactness. Sila belongs to that knowledge and to the peoples who live by it.
Rationale
Our route to sila was Zoe Todd’s essay in our Library, which insists Inuit thinkers be credited. Like kapwa and vā, it sits “within wider philosophical, religious and cultural traditions and ways of living”.