Eskimo

The Eskimo are the indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the northern circumpolar region from eastern Siberia (Russia), across Alaska (United States), Canada, and Greenland.^[1][2][3]

The two main peoples known as "Eskimo" are: Inuit of Canada, Northern Alaska (sub-group "Inupiat"), and Greenland, Yupik of Alaska and eastern Siberia. The Yupik comprise speakers of four distinct Yupik languages: one used in the Russian Far East and the others among people of Western Alaska, Southcentral Alaska and along the Gulf of Alaska coast. A third group, the Aleut, is closely related to the Eskimo and shares a recent, common ("Paleo-Eskimo") ancestor, and a language group (Eskimo-Aleut). The Aleut are also recognized as belonging to the greater Eskimo race, which is distinct from the Native Americans

While the term "Eskimo" is sometimes considered offensive,^[4][5] in its linguistic origins^[1] it is not a fundamentally offensive word.^[6] Alternative terms such as Inuit-Yupik have been proposed,^[7] but none have come into widespread acceptance. In Canada and Greenland, the term "Eskimo" has fallen out of favor as pejorative and has been widely replaced by the term "Inuit", "Alaska Natives", or terms specific to a particular tribe. Under U.S. and Alaskan law, however, as well as the linguistic and cultural traditions of Alaska, "Alaska Natives" refers to all indigenous peoples of Alaska; this includes not only groups such as the Aleut, who share a recent ancestor with the Inuit and Yupik groups, but also the largely unrelated^[8] indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and the Dene.

The Canadian Constitution Act of 1982, sections 25^[9] and 35^[10] recognized the Inuit as a distinctive group of aboriginal peoples in Canada.

The Eskimo are known as Esquimaux in French and эскимосы in Russian.

History

Several earlier peoples existed in the region, and the earliest positively identified North American Eskimo cultures (pre-Dorset) date to 5,000 years ago. They appear to have evolved in Alaska from people related to the Arctic small tool tradition in Asia who probably had migrated to Alaska at least 3,000 to 5,000 years earlier. There are similar artifacts found in Siberia going back perhaps 18,000 years.

The Yupik languages and cultures in Alaska evolved in place (and migrated back to Siberia), beginning with the original pre-Dorset indigenous culture developed in Alaska. Approximately 4000 years ago, the Unangan culture of the Aleut became distinct. It is largely considered a non-Eskimo culture.

Approximately 1500–2000 years ago, apparently in Northwestern Alaska, two other distinct variations appeared. Inuit language became distinct and over a period of several centuries migrated across Northern Alaska, Canada and into Greenland. The distinct culture of the Thule people developed in northwestern Alaska and very quickly spread over the entire area occupied by Eskimo people, though it was not necessarily adopted by all of them.

Nomenclature

Origin

Look up eskimo or Eskimo in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Two principal competing etymologies have been proposed for the name "Eskimo," both derived from the Innu-aimun (Montagnais) language, an Algonquian language of the Atlantic Ocean coast. The most commonly accepted today appears to be the proposal of Ives Goddard at the Smithsonian Institution, who derives it from the Montagnais word meaning "snowshoe-netter"^[11] or "to net snowshoes."^[1] The word assime·w means "she laces a snowshoe" in Montagnais. Montagnais speakers refer to the neighbouring Mi'kmaq people using words that sound very much like eskimo.^[12][13] The second proposal, from Jose Mailhot, a Quebec anthropologist who speaks Montagnais, published a paper in 1978 which suggested, alternatively, that the meaning is "people who speak a different language".^[14][15] French traders who encountered the Montagnais in the eastern areas, adopted their word for the more western peoples.

The primary reason some people consider Eskimo derogatory is the questionable but widespread perception^{[11][14][15][16]} that in Algonkian languages it means "eaters of raw meat."^[1][17][18] One Cree speaker suggested the original word that became corrupted to Eskimo might indeed have been askamiciw (which means "he eats it raw"), and the Inuit are referred to in some Cree texts as askipiw (which means "eats something raw").^{[17][19][20][21]}

In 1977, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference meeting in Barrow, Alaska, officially adopted "Inuit" as a designation for all Eskimos, regardless of their local usages. The Inuit Circumpolar Council, as it is known today, uses both "Inuit" and "Eskimo" in its official documents.^[22][23]

General

In Canada and Greenland the term Eskimo is widely held by many people to be pejorative and has fallen out of favour, largely supplanted by the term Inuit.^{[1][19][21][24]} However, while Inuit describes all of the Eskimo peoples in Canada and Greenland, that is not true in Alaska and Siberia. In Alaska the term Eskimo is commonly used, because it includes both Yupik and Iñupiat, while Inuit is not accepted as a collective term or even specifically used for Iñupiat (who are Inuit).^[1]

In 1977, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference meeting in Barrow, Alaska, officially adopted Inuit as a designation for all circumpolar native peoples, regardless of their local view on an appropriate term. As a result the Canadian government usage has replaced the (locally) defunct term Eskimo with Inuit (Inuk in singular). The preferred term in Canada's Central Arctic is Inuinnaq,^[25] and in the eastern Canadian Arctic Inuit. The language is often called Inuktitut, though other local designations are also used.

The Inuit of Greenland refer to themselves as "Greenlanders" and speak the Greenlandic language.^[26]

Because of the linguistic, ethnic, and cultural differences between Yupik and Inuit peoples, it seems questionable that any umbrella term to encompass all Yupik and Inuit people will be acceptable. There has been some movement to use Inuit, and the Inuit Circumpolar Council, representing a circumpolar population of 150,000 Inuit and Yupik people of Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, in its charter defines Inuit for use within that ICC document as including "the Inupiat, Yupik (Alaska), Inuit, Inuvialuit (Canada), Kalaallit (Greenland) and Yupik (Russia)."^[27] But, in Alaska, the Inuit people refer to themselves as Iñupiat, plural, and Iñupiaq, singular (their North Alaskan Inupiatun language is also called Iñupiaq) and do not use the term Inuit as commonly. Thus, in Alaska, Eskimo is in common usage.^[1]

Alaskans also use the term Alaska Native, which is inclusive of all Eskimo, Aleut and Native American people of Alaska. It does not apply to Inuit or Yupik people originating outside the state. The term Alaska Native has important legal usage in Alaska and the rest of the United States as a result of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.

The term "Eskimo" is also used in linguistic or ethnographic works to denote the larger branch of Eskimo–Aleut languages, the smaller branch being Aleut.

Languages

The Eskimo–Aleut family of languages includes two cognate branches: the Aleut (Unangan) branch and the Eskimo branch. The Eskimo sub-family consists of the Inuit language and Yupik language sub-groups.^[28] The Sirenikski language, which is virtually extinct, is sometimes regarded as a third branch of the Eskimo language family. Other sources regard it as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.^[28][29]

Inuit languages comprise a dialect continuum, or dialect chain, that stretches from Unalakleet and Norton Sound in Alaska, across northern Alaska and Canada, and east to Greenland. Changes from western (Iñupiaq) to eastern dialects are marked by the dropping of vestigial Yupik-related features, increasing consonant assimilation (e.g., kumlu, meaning "thumb", changes to kuvlu, changes to kublu,^[30] changes to kulluk,^[30] changes to kulluq^[30]), and increased consonant lengthening, and lexical change. Thus, speakers of two adjacent Inuit dialects would usually be able to understand one another, but speakers from dialects distant from each other on the dialect continuum would have difficulty understanding one another.^[29] Seward Peninsula dialects in Western Alaska, where much of the Iñupiat culture has been in place for perhaps less than 500 years, are greatly affected by phonological influence from the Yupik languages. Eastern Greenlandic, at the opposite end of the Inuit range, has had significant word replacement due to a unique form of ritual name avoidance.^[28][29]

The four Yupik languages, by contrast, including Alutiiq (Sugpiaq), Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Naukan (Naukanski), and Siberian Yupik, are distinct languages with phonological, morphological, and lexical differences. They demonstrate limited mutual intelligibility.^[28] Additionally, both Alutiiq and Central Yup'ik have considerable dialect diversity. The northernmost Yupik languages – Siberian Yupik and Naukanski Yupik – are linguistically only slightly closer to Inuit than is Alutiiq, which is the southernmost of the Yupik languages. Although the grammatical structures of Yupik and Inuit languages are similar, they have pronounced differences phonologically. Differences of vocabulary between Inuit and any one of the Yupik languages are greater than between any two Yupik languages.^[29] Even the dialectal differences within Alutiiq and Central Alaskan Yup'ik sometimes are relatively great for locations that are relatively close geographically.^[29]

The Sirenikski language is sometimes regarded as a third branch of the Eskimo language family, but other sources regard it as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.^[29]

An overview of the Eskimo–Aleut languages family is given below:

Aleut

Aleut language

Western-Central dialects: Atkan, Attuan, Unangan, Bering (60–80 speakers)

Eastern dialect: Unalaskan, Pribilof (400 speakers)

Eskimo (Yup'ik, Yuit, and Inuit)

Yupik

Central Alaskan Yup'ik (10,000 speakers)

Alutiiq or Pacific Gulf Yup'ik (400 speakers)

Central Siberian Yupik or Yuit (Chaplinon and St Lawrence Island, 1,400 speakers)

Naukan (700 speakers)

Inuit or Inupik (75,000 speakers)

Iñupiaq (northern Alaska, 3,500 speakers)

Inuvialuktun (western Canada; together with Siglitun, Natsilingmiutut, Inuinnaqtun and Uummarmiutun 765 speakers)

Inuktitut (eastern Canada; together with Inuktun and Inuinnaqtun, 30,000 speakers)

Kalaallisut (Greenland, 47,000 speakers)

Inuktun (Avanersuarmiutut, Thule dialect or Polar Eskimo, approximately 1,000 speakers)

Tunumiit oraasiat (East Greenlandic known as Tunumiisut, 3,500 speakers)

Sirenik Eskimo language (Sirenikskiy) (extinct)

Inuit

The Inuit inhabit the Arctic and northern Bering Sea coasts of Alaska in the United States, and Arctic coasts of the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Quebec, and Labrador in Canada, and Greenland (associated with Denmark). Until fairly recent times, there has been a remarkable homogeneity in the culture throughout this area, which traditionally relied on fish, sea mammals, and land animals for food, heat, light, clothing, and tools. They maintain a unique Inuit culture.

Greenland's Inuit

Greenlandic Inuit people make up 89% of Greenland's population.^[31] They belong to three major groups:

• Kalaallit of west Greenland, who speak Kalaallisut
• Tunumiit of east Greenland, who speak Tunumiisut
• Inughuit of north Greenland, who speak Inuktun or Polar Eskimo.^[26]

East Canada's Inuit

Canadian Inuit live primarily in Nunavut (a territory of Canada), Nunavik (the northern part of Quebec) and in Nunatsiavut (the Inuit settlement region in Labrador).

West Canada's Inuvialuit

The Inuvialuit live in the western Canadian Arctic region. Their homeland – the Inuvialuit Settlement Region – covers the Arctic Ocean coastline area from the Alaskan border east to Amundsen Gulf and includes the western Canadian Arctic Islands. The land was demarked in 1984 by the Inuvialuit Final Agreement.

Alaska's Iñupiat

The Iñupiat are the Inuit of Alaska's Northwest Arctic and North Slope boroughs and the Bering Straits region, including the Seward Peninsula. Barrow, the northernmost city in the United States, is above the Arctic Circle and in the Iñupiat region. Their language is known as Iñupiaq.

Yupik

The Yupik are indigenous or aboriginal peoples who live along the coast of western Alaska, especially on the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta and along the Kuskokwim River (Central Alaskan Yup'ik); in southern Alaska (the Alutiiq); and along the eastern coast of Chukotka in the Russian Far East and St. Lawrence Island in western Alaska (the Siberian Yupik). The Yupik economy has traditionally been strongly dominated by the harvest of marine mammals, especially seals, walrus, and whales.^[32]

Alutiiq

The Alutiiq, also called Pacific Yupik or Sugpiaq, are a southern, coastal branch of Yupik. They are not to be confused with the Aleut, who live further to the southwest, including along the Aleutian Islands. They traditionally lived a coastal lifestyle, subsisting primarily on ocean resources such as salmon, halibut, and whales, as well as rich land resources such as berries and land mammals. Alutiiq people today live in coastal fishing communities, where they work in all aspects of the modern economy. They also maintain the cultural value of subsistence.

The Alutiiq language is relatively close to that spoken by the Yupik in the Bethel, Alaska area. But, it is considered a distinct language with two major dialects: the Koniag dialect, spoken on the Alaska Peninsula and on Kodiak Island, and the Chugach dialect, spoken on the southern Kenai Peninsula and in Prince William Sound. Residents of Nanwalek, located on southern part of the Kenai Peninsula near Seldovia, speak what they call Sugpiaq. They are able to understand those who speak Yupik in Bethel. With a population of approximately 3,000, and the number of speakers in the hundreds, Alutiiq communities are working to revitalize their language.

Central Alaskan Yup'ik

Yup'ik, with an apostrophe, denotes the speakers of the Central Alaskan Yup'ik language, who live in western Alaska and southwestern Alaska from southern Norton Sound to the north side of Bristol Bay, on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, and on Nelson Island. The use of the apostrophe in the name Yup'ik is a written convention to denote the long pronunciation of the p sound; but it is spoken the same in other Yupik languages. Of all the Alaska Native languages, Central Alaskan Yup'ik has the most speakers, with about 10,000 of a total Yup'ik population of 21,000 still speaking the language. The five dialects of Central Alaskan Yup'ik include General Central Yup'ik, and the Egegik, Norton Sound, Hooper Bay-Chevak, and Nunivak dialects. In the latter two dialects, both the language and the people are called Cup'ik.^[33]

Siberian Yupik

Siberian Yupik reside along the Bering Sea coast of the Chukchi Peninsula in Siberia in the Russian Far East^[29] and in the villages of Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska.^[34] The Central Siberian Yupik spoken on the Chukchi Peninsula and on St. Lawrence Island is nearly identical. About 1,050 of a total Alaska population of 1,100 Siberian Yupik people in Alaska speak the language. It is the first language of the home for most St. Lawrence Island children. In Siberia, about 300 of a total of 900 Siberian Yupik people still learn and study the language, though it is no longer learned as a first language by children.^[34]

Naukan

About 70 of 400 Naukan people still speak Naukanski. The Naukan originate on the Chukot Peninsula in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in Siberia.^[29]

Sirenik Eskimos

Some speakers of Siberian Yupik languages used to speak an Eskimo variant in the past, before they underwent a language shift. These former speakers of Sirenik Eskimo language inhabited the settlements of Sireniki, Imtuk, and some small villages stretching to the west from Sireniki along south-eastern coasts of Chukchi Peninsula.^[35] They lived in neighborhood with Siberian Yupik and Chukchi peoples.

As early as in 1895, Imtuk was already a settlement with a mixed population of Sirenik Eskimos and Ungazigmit^[36] (the latter belonging to Siberian Yupik). Sirenik Eskimo culture has been influenced by that of Chukchi, and the language shows Chukchi language influences.^[37] Folktale motifs also show the influence of Chuckchi culture.^[38]

The above peculiarities of this (already extinct) Eskimo language amounted to mutual unintelligibility even with its nearest language relatives:^[39] in the past, Sirenik Eskimos had to use the unrelated Chukchi language as a lingua franca for communicating with Siberian Yupik.^[37]

Many words are formed from entirely different roots than in Siberian Yupik,^[40] but even the grammar has several peculiarities distinct not only among Eskimo languages, but even compared to Aleut. For example, dual number is not known in Sirenik Eskimo, while most Eskimo–Aleut languages have dual,^[41] including its neighboring Siberian Yupikax relatives.^[42]

Little is known about the origin of this diversity. The peculiarities of this language may be the result of a supposed long isolation from other Eskimo groups,^[43][44] and being in contact only with speakers of unrelated languages for many centuries. The influence of the Chukchi language is clear.^[37]

Because of all these factors, the classification of Sireniki Eskimo language is not settled yet:^[45] Sireniki language is sometimes regarded as a third branch of Eskimo (at least, its possibility is mentioned).^[45][46][47] Sometimes it is regarded rather as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.^[48][49]

Myths and misconceptions about the Eskimo

There are common erroneous ideas about the Eskimo. These include:

• "They have thousands of words for snow." Eskimo–Aleut languages have about the same number of distinct word roots referring to snow as English does, but the agglutinative structure of these languages allows almost infinite combinations of prefixes and suffices to these roots - so 'snow' can form as many 'words' as any other root. See Eskimo words for snow.
• "They live in igloos." The word "igloo" or iglu simply means "house". The snow house identified with the people was built as a temporary shelter during hunting seasons in the late winter and spring. It expressed an important survival skill in making use of what materials were available. The snow house is built today in emergencies or for fun as part of the transfer of traditional knowledge between generations.

See also

Notes

References

• Kaplan, Lawrence D. (1990). "The Language of the Alaskan Inuit" (PDF). In Dirmid R. F. Collis. Arctic Languages. An Awakening (PDF)|format= requires |url= (help). Vendôme: UNESCO. pp. 131–158. ISBN 92-3-102661-5. 
• Menovshchikov, Georgy (= Г. А. Меновщиков) (1990). "Contemporary Studies of the Eskimo–Aleut Languages and Dialects: A Progress Report" (PDF). In Dirmid R. F. Collis. Arctic Languages. An Awakening (PDF)|format= requires |url= (help). Vendôme: UNESCO. pp. 69–76. ISBN 92-3-102661-5. 
• Nuttall, Mark. Encyclopedia of the Arctic. New York: Routledge, 2005. ISBN 978-1-57958-436-8.
• Vakhtin, Nikolai (1998). "Endangered Languages in Northeast Siberia: Siberian Yupik and other Languages of Chukotka" (PDF). In Erich Kasten. Bicultural Education in the North: Ways of Preserving and Enhancing Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Traditional Knowledge (PDF). Münster: Waxmann Verlag. pp. 159–173. ISBN 978-3-89325-651-8. 
• Vakhtin, Nikolai (1998). "Endangered Languages in Northeast Siberia: Siberian Yupik and other Languages of Chukotka" (PDF). In Erich Kasten. Bicultural Education in the North: Ways of Preserving and Enhancing Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Traditional Knowledge (PDF). Münster: Waxmann Verlag. pp. 159–173. ISBN 978-3-89325-651-8. 

Cyrillic

• Меновщиков, Г. А. (1964). Язык сиреникских эскимосовref Фонетика, очерк морфологии, тексты и словарь. Москва • Ленинград,: Академия Наук СССР. Институт языкознания.  The transliteration of Меновщиков 1964: 38 author's name, and the rendering of title in English: Menovshchikov, G. A. (1964). Language of Sireniki Eskimos. Phonetics, morphology, texts and vocabulary. Moscow • Leningrad: Academy of Sciences of the USSR. 

Further reading

• Adapting to climate change: social-ecological resilience in a Canadian western arctic community. Conservation Ecology 5(2)
• Canadian Council on Learning, State of Inuit Learning in Canada
• Contemporary Food Sharing: A Case Study from Akulivik, PQ. Canada.
• Internet Sacred Text Archive: Inuit Religion
• Inuit Culture
• Inuit Exposure to Organochlorines through the Aquatic Food Chain. Environmental Health Perspectives 101(7)
• Inuit Women and Graphic Arts: Female Creativity and Its Cultural Context. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 9(2)
• Pauktuuit Inuit Women of Canada, The Inuit Way: A Guide to Inuit Culture
• We the People: American Indians and Alaska Natives in the United States. Census 2000 Special Reports February 2006
• University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Frank H. Nowell Photographs Photographs documenting scenery, towns, businesses, mining activities, Native Americans, and Eskimos in the vicinity of Nome, Alaska from 1901-1909.
• University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Alaska and Western Canada Collection Images documenting Alaska and Western Canada, primarily the provinces of Yukon Territory and British Columbia depicting scenes of the Gold Rush of 1898, city street scenes, Eskimo and Native Americans of the region, hunting and fishing, and transportation.
• University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Arthur Churchill Warner Photographs Includes images of Eskimos from 1898-1900.

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