Inuit - Nomenclature

Nomenclature

In the United States, the term "Eskimo" is commonly used, because it distinguished both Yupik and Inupiat peoples from other native Americans. The Yupik do not speak an Inuit language or consider themselves to be Inuit. However, as the term is a—probably Montagnais – exonym and has been widely folk etymologized as meaning "eater of raw meat" in Cree, it has become considered a pejorative or even racial slur among Canadian and English-speaking Greenlandic Inuit.

In Canada and Greenland, "Inuit" is preferred. Inuit is the Eastern Canadian Inuit (Inuktitut) and West Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) word for "People". Since Inuktitut and Kalaallisut are the prestige dialects in Canada and Greenland, respectively, their version has become dominant, although every Inuit dialect uses cognates from the Proto-Eskimo *ińuɣ – for example, "people" is inughuit in North Greenlandic and iivit in East Greenlandic.