#sugpiat

[folkfashion]

Sugpiat women, Alaska, by Lexi Qass’uq Trainer

[willowbilly]

“Eskimo” both is and is not a slur. 

In Greenland and Canada it is more unequivocally offensive, whereas in Alaska some Iñupiat and Yupiit—though far from all—do indeed use this exonym for themselves in English, particularly more rural or elderly speakers. The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, for instance, uses it in their name. Edna Ahgeak MacLean, a foremost Iñupiaq language authority, uses it occasionally in her work. It is the established academic term for the collective Inuit-Yuit branch of the Inuit-Yuit-Unangan or “Eskimo-Aleut” language family. “Eskimo” does not refer to Inuit alone, but is an umbrella term for Iñuich and Yupiit together, one that colloquially excludes Sugpiat, who are otherwise known as “Alutiit,” along with Unangan, otherwise known as “Aleuts,” who both prefer those Russian-derived “Алеуты” exonyms over the “Esquimaux” one. The ethnonym “Inuit” more properly applies only to Iñupiat and other Iñuich, not to Yupiit as well. The words Inuit and Yuit are cognates, but exonyms in each other’s respective languages. The difference between Iñupiatun and Yugtun is said to be roughly comparable to that between English and German: obviously related languages, but not mutually intelligible, having diverged around 1000 CE; Unangam Tunuu diverged earlier, around 2000 BCE. “Inuit and Yupiit” is in generalized circumstances the most accurate substitution for “Eskimo” as it does not conflate two distinct Indigenous peoples under the name of one. 

The etymology of the exonym is furthermore disputed. Its origin may be from the Innu-aimun word ayas̆kimew “person who laces a snowshoe,” or from another Innu-aimun word that is not a reference to diet. 

That said, I would like to reinforce the message that non-Native people shouldn’t use “Eskimo kisses, ice cream,” etc. as casual terms disconnected from the relevant Native cultures, nor use diminutive forms of the ethnonym. Such usages are pejorative. While it is for the most part rude to correct people on their own terminology for themselves, I urge non-Native people to use Native endonyms over exonyms wherever possible, and not to evoke actual peoples as stereotypes.