Eskimo

History

Genetic evidence suggests that the Americas were populated from northeastern Asia in multiple waves. While the great majority of indigenous American peoples can be traced to a single early migration of Paleo-Indians, the Na-Dené, Inuit and Indigenous Alaskan populations exhibit admixture from distinct populations that migrated into America at a later date and are closely linked to the peoples of far northeastern Asia (e.g. Chukchi), and only more remotely to the majority indigenous American type. For modern Eskimo–Aleut speakers, this later ancestral component makes up almost half of their genomes. The ancient Paleo-Eskimo population was genetically distinct from the modern circumpolar populations, but eventually derives from the same far northeastern Asian cluster. It is understood that some or all of these ancient people migrated across the Chukchi Sea to North America during the pre-neolithic era, somewhere around 5,000 to 10,000 years ago. It is believed that ancestors of the Aleut people inhabited the Aleutian Chain 10,000 years ago.

The earliest positively identified Paleo-Eskimo cultures (Early Paleo-Eskimo) date to 5,000 years ago. Several earlier indigenous peoples existed in the northern circumpolar regions of eastern Siberia, Alaska, and Canada (although probably not in Greenland). The Paleo-Eskimo peoples appear to have developed in Alaska from people related to the Arctic small tool tradition in eastern Asia, whose ancestors had probably migrated to Alaska at least 3,000 to 5,000 years earlier.

The Yupik languages and cultures in Alaska evolved in place, beginning with the original pre-Dorset Indigenous culture developed in Alaska. At least 4,000 years ago, the Unangan culture of the Aleut became distinct. It is not generally considered an Eskimo culture. However, there is some possibility of an Aleutian origin of the Dorset people, who in turn are a likely ancestor of today's Inuit and Yupik.

Approximately 1,500 to 2,000 years ago, apparently in northwestern Alaska, two other distinct variations appeared. Inuit language became distinct and, over a period of several centuries, its speakers migrated across northern Alaska, through Canada, and into Greenland. The distinct culture of the Thule people (drawing strongly from the Birnirk culture) developed in northwestern Alaska. It very quickly spread over the entire area occupied by Eskimo peoples, though it was not necessarily adopted by all of them.

Languages

Language family

The Eskimo–Aleut (also known as Eskaleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan) family of languages includes two cognate branches: the Aleut (Unangan) branch and the Inuit–Yupik branch.

The number of cases varies, with Aleut languages having a greatly reduced case system compared to those of the Inuit–Yupik subfamily. Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages possess voiceless plosives at the bilabial, coronal, velar and uvular positions in all languages except Aleut, which has lost the bilabial stops but retained the nasal. In the Inuit–Yupik subfamily a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is also present.

The Inuit–Yupik sub-family consists of the Inuit and Yupik language sub-groups. The Sirenik language, which is virtually extinct, is sometimes regarded as a third branch of the Inuit–Yupik language family. Other sources regard it as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.

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, changes to kulluk, changes to kulluq,) 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. 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 Inuit range, has had significant word replacement due to a unique form of ritual name avoidance.

Ethnographically, Greenlandic Inuit belong to three groups: the Kalaallit of west Greenland, who speak Kalaallisut; the Tunumiit of Tunu (east Greenland), who speak Tunumiit oraasiat ("East Greenlandic"), and the Inughuit of north Greenland, who speak Inuktun.

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. Additionally, both Alutiiq and Central Yup'ik have considerable dialect diversity. The northernmost Yupik languages – Siberian Yupik and Naukan 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. Even the dialectal differences within Alutiiq and Central Alaskan Yup'ik sometimes are relatively great for locations that are relatively close geographically.

Despite the relatively small population of Naukan speakers, documentation of the language dates back to 1732. While Naukan is only spoken in Siberia, the language acts as an intermediate between two Alaskan languages: Siberian Yupik and Central Yup'ik.

An overview of the Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages family is given below:

• Inuit–Yupik–Unangan
  • Aleut or Unangan
    • • Western-Central dialects: Atkan, Attuan, Unangan, Bering (60–80 speakers)
      • Eastern dialect: Unalaskan, Pribilof (400 speakers)
  • Inuit–Yupik or 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)
      • Greenlandic (Greenland, 47,000 speakers)
        • Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic, 44,000-52,000 speakers)
        • Tunumiisut (East Greenlandic, 3,500 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)
      • Inuktun (Avanersuarmiutut, Thule dialect or Polar Eskimo, approximately 1,000 speakers)
    • Sirenik (Sirenikskiy) †

American linguist Lenore Grenoble has explicitly deferred to the ICC resolution and used Inuit–Yupik instead of Eskimo with regards to the language branch.

Words for snow

Linguists have long debated whether the Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages have an unusually large number of words for snow. Many of these languages have over fifty words for specific types of snow, both because they have more root words for frozen water, but also because they have a rich derivational system for creating more words, so it depends on the definition of "word".

Diet

Historically, Inuit cuisine, which is taken here to include the Greenlandic, the Yupʼik and Aleut cuisines, consisted of a diet of animal source foods that were fished, hunted, and gathered locally.

Inuit

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, marine mammals, and land animals for food, heat, light, clothing, and tools. Their food sources primarily relied on seals, whales, whale blubber, walrus, and fish, all of which they hunted using harpoons on the ice. Clothing consisted of robes made of wolfskin and reindeer skin to acclimate to the low temperatures. They maintain a unique Inuit culture.

Greenland's Inuit

Greenlandic Inuit make up 90% of Greenland's population. 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.

Canadian Inuit

Canadian Inuit live primarily in Inuit Nunangat (lit. "lands, waters and ices of the [Inuit]"), their traditional homeland although some people live in southern parts of Canada. Inuit Nunangat ranges from the Yukon–Alaska border in the west across the Arctic to northern Labrador.

The Inuvialuit live in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, the northern part of Yukon and the Northwest Territories, which stretches to the Amundsen Gulf and the Nunavut border and includes the western Canadian Arctic Islands. The land was demarked in 1984 by the Inuvialuit Final Agreement.

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

Alaska's Iñupiat

The Iñupiat are Inuit of Alaska's Northwest Arctic and North Slope boroughs and the Bering Straits region, including the Seward Peninsula. Utqiaġvik, the northernmost city in the United States, is above the Arctic Circle and in the Iñupiat region. Their language is known as Iñupiaq. Their current communities include 34 villages across Iñupiat Nunaŋat (Iñupiaq lands) including seven Alaskan villages in the North Slope Borough, affiliated with the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation; eleven villages in Northwest Arctic Borough; and sixteen villages affiliated with the Bering Straits Regional Corporation.

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.

Alutiiq

The Alutiiq (pronounced ə-LOO-tik in English; from Promyshlenniki Russian Алеутъ, "Aleut"; plural often "Alutiit"), also called by their ancestral name Sugpiaq ( SUUG-byahk or SUUG-pee-AK; plural often "Sugpiat"), as well as Pacific Eskimo or Pacific Yupik, are a Yupik peoples, one of eight groups of Alaska Natives that inhabit the southern-central coast of the region.

Their traditional homelands date back to over 7,500 years ago, and include areas such as Prince William Sound and outer Kenai Peninsula (Chugach Sugpiaq), the Kodiak Archipelago and the Alaska Peninsula (Koniag Alutiiq). In the early 1800s there were more than 60 Alutiiq villages in the Kodiak archipelago, with an estimated population of 13,000 people. Today more than 4,000 Alutiiq live in Alaska.

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.

Siberian Yupik

Siberian Yupik reside along the Bering Sea coast of the Chukchi Peninsula in Siberia in the Russian Far East and in the villages of Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska. 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.

Naukan

About 70 of 400 Naukan people still speak Naukanski. The Naukan originate on the Chukot Peninsula in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in Siberia. Despite the relatively small population of Naukan speakers, documentation of the language dates back to 1732. While Naukan is only spoken in Siberia, the language acts as an intermediate between two Alaskan languages: Siberian Yupik Eskimo and Central Yup'ik Eskimo.

Sireniki

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

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

The above peculiarities of this (already extinct) Inuit–Yupik language amounted to mutual unintelligibility even with its nearest language relatives: in the past, Sireniki had to use the unrelated Chukchi language as a lingua franca for communicating with Siberian Yupik.

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

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 Inuit and Yupik groups, and being in contact only with speakers of unrelated languages for many centuries. The influence of the Chukchi language is clear.

Because of all these factors, the classification of the Sirenik language is not settled yet: Sireniki language is sometimes regarded as a third branch of Inuit–Yupik (at least, its possibility is mentioned). Sometimes it is regarded rather as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.