[Ads-l] (Pop) sociolinguistics of the word "eskimo" in AmE

[Chris Waigl]

This article, from the Alaska Dispatch News, may be of interest for lexicographers and everyone who follows the the word use, register and taboo. http://www.adn.com/article/20160220/confused-about-word-eskimo-it-helps-look-deeper

> “””
> But with Eskimo it’s a bit more complicated. The issue has lasted for decades. In Canada, Inuit replaced Eskimo almost 40 years ago. More than 20 years ago, Sambo Dorough called for getting rid of the word in the Anchorage Daily News. But about 10 years ago I was scolded by a North Slope elder for using Inuit. He said, “That’s Canadian. In Alaska we’re Eskimo.”
> 
> I asked Sambo Donough [professor of political science at UAA and herself Inupiaq, and a childhood friend of the author’s] about Alaska Native groups that haven’t decided themselves what they should be called.
> 
> “This suggests something really important, Coolie,” she said, using my long-discarded nickname from high school. “To me, this suggests the fact that indigenous communities in Alaska have not had the political and intellectual space to have that conversation. They haven’t arrived at a consensus. … I think what we’re seeing, especially amongst the younger generation, is individuals who want to answer that question, and are thinking about their identity as individuals and the collectivity that they are attached to, and in certain areas it is becoming clearer and has crystallized about who we are as Native people.”
> 
> Cheers to that effort. We need a new synonym for Eskimo. In the meantime, please don’t take offense.
> “”"

As someone who lives in Alaska, the issue of being careful in one’s word choice for ethnic or tribal labels is a very familiar one. And like the author, I feel that while there’s no good solution that fits every usage need. The word “Eskimo” appears in a number of perfectly ok-to-use compounds (WEIO - the World Eskimo Indian Olympics, which is an (awesome) annual culture-and-sports festival; various federally recognised tribal designations such as the Nome Eskimo Community; eskimo ice cream(*); all these terms are grating to Canadians, as far as I know). It’s of practical importance. At my own institution, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, nearly 20% of students fall into the “Alaska Native or American Indian” ethnic category. When people from outside Alaska (be they English native speakers or not) ask me, I usually give the following simple advice: Never use “Eskimo” in Canada, where it’s clearly perceived as derogatory; in Alaska, it is not generally, and you’ll find many people who refer to their own Eskimo heritage [as evidenced in the comments on the article, both on the site and on Facebook]. But it’s also not without rubbing some the wrong way, so if you *have* to use a label, it’s better to use a more specific modifier (Inupiat, Yup’ik). But of course, in Canada, Inuit/Inuk/Inuktitut (depending on whether you are talking about the group, an individual, or the language) are usually very good replacements, whereas in Alaska, you have about the same chance that the eskimo you’re referring to is Inupiaq or Yup’ik, and they may be Alutiiq, or even Aleut — a group who, because to history, will (in my experience) more strenuously than others prefer not to be included in the “Eskimo” label. Plus, of course, there’s a fair amount of mixing going in, most significantly between Natives of Eskimo-Aleut heritage and Athabaskan/Dene(**) background. Especially, again in my experience, when meeting young people from the Yukon-Koyukuk region, it’s quite common to hear about mixed heritage — Inupiaq or Yup’ik (of various sub-groups) on one side, and Koyukuk Athabaskan on the other. 

Chris

(*) a mixture of sugar, vegetable fat (Crisco), Alaska blueberries/salmonberries/whatever-is-available-berries and, sometimes, boiled sheefish, which tastes a lot better than it sounds — you can always call it akutaq of course… 
(**) A topic for another day… 
-- 
Chris Waigl -- http://chryss.eu -- http://eggcorns.lascribe.net
twitter: chrys -- friendfeed: chryss

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