So I am playing around with thinking how to create a cross-language dictionary which translates between "words". Well, the system I landed on is sort of like this (to give some background for the question).

Everything is a "flow". Roots, stems, words, sentences, they are all flows. They start from flow "bases" and work their way up to more complex flows. There are at least 4 special types of flows as I currently see it:

1. Swivel (words like "the")
2. Object (nouns like "tree")
3. Factor (adjectives/features like "big")
4. Action (verbs like "make")

I've thought for a long time how to try and model words like "the" for programming purposes (still have many more years to go!), but thinking of it as a "swivel" or sort of focuser/anchor, that is closest to my experience. "The" swivels your mind to refocus attention on a key part of the flow (flow like rapping). Same with words like "a", though I am not sure what other words might fit here, but in other languages like agglutinative ones where you have a PAST stem for marking past tense in a flow, it makes sense used there too, it is redirecting your attention to the appropriate mental place. Thus, the swivel is not a "thing", it is more of an "experience" which you can feel upon introspection.

Likewise, a factor is like a feature, it is not a thing either really, like "big". You can kind of see "big", but it is not a thing. In contrast, an action is a thing you can see and easily directly experience, and so is an object. These two things are appropriate to be grouped into the term "term". But while the initial impression of a factor and a swivel don't seem to fit under the traditional "term" label, I think with a slight mental shift they can be considered terms as well. So then the 4 special types of flows are terms. Terms are the language-form of a notion, which is the language-agnostic sort of concept meta layer (for completeness currently). Arriving at thinking of terms like this ("cross-pollinate", "daylight savings time", etc.) is much closer to how I see and work with language in programming, how computers deal with the world. So that might be interesting to play with.

I'm looking for some inspiration in Inuktitut and found "words" like:

Nukakkunnunngaulauqtunga.
I went to my younger sibling’s place.
takujaqtulauqtara
I went to see him/her
Mittarvingmuariaqalaaqtunga.
I will have to go to the airport. 

Flows seem to capture these sorts of "word" styles, but I am in the process of figuring out more cases, and am thinking about "the" right now. At first I was thinking of doing a direct translation morpheme-by-morpheme (flow base by flow base), but that clearly doesn't work translating from English to Inuktitut (or other languages). So this question boils down to, how do you teach someone in Inuktitut (or elsewhere) about the word "the" (or "a")? How do you translate phrases like "the big red tree" into Inuktitut? If you leave out the word "the", how do you conceptualize this translation process? Now, when I read "the big red tree", "the" focuses my mind on what's about to come, the "main" thing, "big" merges into the focus the feeling of expanse, "red" prepares a hue, and "tree" nails the object into the experience. Now how do I go from that, into Inuktitut, or any other language which differs a bit from English?

So this question boils down to, how do you teach someone in Inuktitut (or elsewhere) about the word "the" (or "a")? How do you translate phrases like "the big red tree" into Inuktitut? If you leave out the word "the", how do you conceptualize this translation process? Now, when I read "the big red tree", "the" focuses my mind on what's about to come, the "main" thing, "big" merges into the focus the feeling of expanse, "red" prepares a hue, and "tree" nails the object into the experience. Now how do I go from that, into Inuktitut, or any other language which differs a bit from English?