Thursday, November 25, 2004

eskimos

The Inuit of northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland and the Yupik of western Alaska and the Russian Far East.
The word Eskimo in English is of uncertain origin, but probably came from a French word, Esquimaux, to English. Many Canadian Inuit consider the name "Eskimo" to be derogatory.
The Eskimos are related to the Aleuts who live on the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.
The name is widely but incorrectly believed to derive from a Cree word sometimes translated as "eaters of raw meat". A few have gone so far as to claim that the Cree, on first encountering the Eskimos, were disgusted by the Eskimo practice of eating meat raw, and so called them, essentially, "sickening humans." Because this folk etymology is so tenacious, many Inuit consider the name "Eskimo" to be derogatory.
However, this etymology is generally held to be false by philologists. Some Algonquian languages - particularly Plains Ojibwe - do call Eskimos by names that mean "eaters of raw meat" or similar. However, in the period of the earliest attested French use of the word, these peoples were not in contact with Europeans, nor did the Plains Ojibwa have very much direct contact with the Inuit in pre-colonial times. It is entirely possible that the Ojibwa have adopted words resembling Eskimo by borrowing them from French, and the French word merely sounds like the Ojibwa word for "eaters of raw meat." Furthermore, since Cree people also traditionally consumed raw meat, a pejorative significance based on this etymology seems unlikely.
people would go to a Denny's restaurant on Thanksgiving it would cost more than preparing this.

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