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The map of the Inuit Circumpolar Council
Eskimo peoples :
* Yupik peoples (Yupik, Siberian Yupik)
* Inuit (Inupiat, Inuvialuit, Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Kalaallit)

A Greenlandic Inuit man

Eskimos (or Esquimaux) or Inuito Yupik (for Alaska: Inupiato Yupik) peoples are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia (Russia), across Alaska (United States), Canada, and Greenland (Denmark).

There are two main groups that are referred to as Eskimo: Yupik and Inupiat. A third group, the Aleut, is related. The Yupiklanguage dialects and cultures in Alaska and eastern Siberia have evolved in place beginning with the original (pre-Dorset) Eskimo culture that developed in Alaska. Approximately 4,000 years ago the Unangan (also known as Aleut) culture became distinctly separate, and evolved into a non-Eskimo culture. Approximately 1,500o 2,000 years ago, apparently in Northwestern Alaska, two other distinct variations appeared. The Inuit language branch became distinct and in only several hundred years spread across northern Alaska, Canada and into Greenland. At about the same time, the technology 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.

The earliest known Eskimo cultures (pre-Dorset) date to 5,000 years ago. They appear to have evolved in Alaska from people using the Arctic small tool tradition. They probably had migrated to Alaska from Siberia at least 2,000 to 3,000 years earlier, though they might have been in Alaska as far back as 10,000 to 12,000 years or more. There are similar artifacts found in Siberia going back perhaps 18,000 years.

Today, the two main groups of Eskimos are the Inuit of northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland, and the Yupik of Central Alaska. The Yupik comprise speakers of four distinct Yupik languages that originated in western Alaska, in South Central Alaska along the Gulf of Alaska coast, and the Russian Far East.

The term Eskimo is commonly used by those in the lower 48 (states of the USA) and in Alaska to include both Yupik and Inupiat. No universal term other than Eskimo, inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people, exists for the Inuit and Yupik peoples.[1] In Canada and Greenland, the term Eskimo has fallen out of favour, as it is sometimes considered pejorative and has been replaced by the termInuit. The Canadian Constitution Act of 1982, sections 25[2] and 35[3] recognized the Inuit as a distinctive group of aboriginal peoples in Canada.

• 1 Nomenclature
  • 1.1 Origin
    
  • 1.2 General
    
  
  
• 2 Languages
  
• 3 Inuit
  • 3.1 Greenland's Inuit
    
  • 3.2 East Canada's Inuit
    
  • 3.3 West Canada's Inuvialuit
    
  • 3.4 Alaska's Inupiat
    
  
  
• 4 Yupik
  • 4.1 Alutiiq
    
  • 4.2 Central Alaskan Yup'ik
    
  • 4.3 Siberian Yupik
    
  • 4.4 Naukan
    
  
  
• 5 Sirenik Eskimos
  
• 6 Myths and misconceptions about the Eskimo
  
• 7 See also
  
• 8 Notes
  
• 9 References
  • 9.1 Cyrillic
    
  
  
• 10 Further reading
  

[edit]Nomenclature

[edit]Origin

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

Two principal competing etymologies have been proposed for the name "Eskimo", both from the Innu-aimun (Montagnais) language. 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".[4] 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.[5][6]

Jose Mailhot, a Quebec anthropologist who speaks Montagnais, however, published a paper in 1978 which suggested that the meaning is "people who speak a different language".[7][8]

The primary reason that Eskimo is considered derogatory is the questionable but widespread perception[4][7][8][9] that in Algonkian languages it means "eaters of raw meat."[10][11]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").[10] The majority of academic linguists do not agree.[citation needed] Nevertheless, it is commonly felt in Canada and Greenland that the term Eskimo is pejorative.[1][12][13][14]

The Inuit Circumpolar Conference meeting in Barrow, Alaska, officially adopted "Inuit" as a designation for all Eskimos, regardless of their local usages, in 1977.[citation needed]However, the Inuit Circumpolar Council, as it is known today, uses both "Inuit" and "Eskimo" in its official documents.[15][16]

[edit]General

Laminar armour from hardened leather reinforced by wood and bones worn bynative Siberians and Eskimos

Late lamellar armour worn by native Siberians and Eskimos

In Canada and Greenland[1][12][14][17] the term Eskimo is widely held to be pejorative[10][17] and has fallen out of favour, largely supplanted by the term Inuit. 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 Inupiat, while Inuit is not accepted as a collective term or even specifically used for Inupiat (who technically are Inuit). No universal term other than Eskimo, inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people, exists for the Inuit and Yupik peoples.[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,[18] 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.[19]

Because of the linguistic, ethnic, and cultural differences between Yupik and Inuit peoples there is uncertainty as to the acceptance of any term encompassing all Yupik and Inuit people. 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 definesInuit for use within the ICC as including "the Inupiat, Yupik (Alaska), Inuit, Inuvialuit (Canada), Kalaallit (Greenland) and Yupik (Russia)."[20] However, even the Inuit people in Alaska refer to themselves as Inupiat (the language is Inupiaq) and do not typically use the term Inuit. Thus, in Alaska, Eskimo is in common usage, and is the preferred term when speaking collectively of all Inupiat and Yupik people, or of all Inuit and Yupik people throughout the world.[1]

Alaskans also use the term Alaska Native, which is inclusive of all Eskimo, Aleut and Indian people of Alaska, and is exclusive of 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 worldwide in linguistic or ethnographic works to denote the larger branch of Eskimoo Aleut languages, the smaller branch being Aleut.

[edit]Languages

Main article: Eskimoo Aleut languages

English (Welcome to Barrow) and Inupiat(Paġlagivsigiñ Utqiaġvigmun), Barrow, Alaska

The Eskimoo 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.[21] The Sirenikski language, which is virtually extinct, 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.[21][22]

Inuit languages comprise a dialect continuum, or dialect chain, that stretches fromUnalakleet and Norton Sound in Alaska, across northern Alaska and Canada, and east all the way to Greenland. Changes from western (Inupiaq) 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,[23] changes to kulluk,[23] changes to kulluq[23]), 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.[22] Seward Peninsula dialects in Western Alaska, where much of the Inupiat culture has only 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.[21][22]

The four Yupik languages, including Alutiiq (Sugpiaq), Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Naukan (Naukanski), and Siberian Yupik are distinct languages with phonological, morphological, and lexical differences, and demonstrating limited mutual intelligibility.[21] Additionally, both Alutiiq and Central Yup'ik have considerable dialect diversity. The northernmost Yupik languages o Siberian Yupik and Naukanski Yupik o 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, and differences of vocabulary between Inuit and any of one of the Yupik languages is greater than between any two Yupik languages.[22] Even the dialectal differences within Alutiiq and Central Alaskan Yup'ik sometimes are relatively great for locations that are relatively close geographically.[22]

While grammatical structures of Yupik and Inuit languages are similar, they have pronounced differences phonologically and differences of vocabulary between Inuit and any of one of the Yupik languages is greater than between any two Yupik languages.[22]

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.[22]

An overview of the Eskimoo Aleut languages family is given below:
AleutAleut languageWestern-Central dialects: Atkan, Attuan, Unangan, Bering (60o 80 speakers)Eastern dialect: Unalaskan, Pribilof (400 speakers)Eskimo (Yup'ik, Yuit, and Inuit)YupikCentral 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)

[edit]Inuit

Main article: Inuit
Not to be confused with the Innu people, a First Nations people in eastern Quebec and Labrador..
See also: List of Inuit (disambiguation)

Inupiat woman, Alaska, circa 1907

An Inuit family, c.1917

The Inuit inhabit the Arctic and northern Bering Sea coasts of Alaska and Arctic coasts of the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Quebec,Labrador, and Greenland. 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.

[edit]Greenland's Inuit

Main article: Greenlandic Inuit people

Greenlandic Inuit people make up 89% of Greenland's population.[24] They belong to three major groups:

• Kalaallit people of west Greenland, who speak Kalaallisut
  
• Tunumiit people of east Greenland, who speak Tunumiisut
  
• Inughuit people of north Greenland, who speak Inuktun or Polar Eskimo.[19]
  

[edit]East Canada's Inuit

Main article: 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).

[edit]West Canada's Inuvialuit

Main article: Inuvialuit

The Inuvialuit live in the western Canadian Arctic region. Their homeland o the Inuvialuit Settlement Region o covers the Arctic Oceancoastline 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.

[edit]Alaska's Inupiat

Main article: Inupiat people

An Inupiat family from Noatak, Alaska, 1929.

The Inupiat people are the Inuit people 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 in the Inupiaq region. Their language is known as Inupiaq.

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