- published: 17 May 2012
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The Inuit (Inuktitut: ᐃᓄᐃᑦ, "People") are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Greenland, Canada, the United States, and Russia. Inuit is a collective noun; the singular is "Inuk". The Inuit language is grouped under the Eskimo-Aleut family.
In the United States, the term Eskimo is commonly used in reference to these groups, because it includes both of Alaska's Yupik and Inupiat peoples while "Inuit" is not proper or accepted as a term for the Inupiat. No collective term exists for both peoples other than "Eskimo". However, natives in Canada and Greenland view the name as pejorative and "Inuit" has become more common. In Canada, sections 25 and 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 named the "Inuit" as a distinctive group of aboriginal Canadians who are not included under either the First Nations or the Métis.
The Inuit live throughout most of the Canadian Arctic and subarctic in the territory of Nunavut; "Nunavik" in the northern third of Quebec; "Nunatsiavut" and "Nunatukavut" in Labrador; and in various parts of the Northwest Territories, particularly around the Arctic Ocean. These areas are known in Inuktitut as the "Inuit Nunangat". In the United States, Inupiat live on the North Slope in Alaska and on Little Diomede Island. In Russia, they live on Big Diomede Island. The Kalaallit and other natives of Greenland are the descendants of migrations from Canada and are citizens of Denmark, although not of the European Union.
Inuit describes the various groups of indigenous peoples who live in the central and northeastern Canadian Arctic, as well as in Greenland. The term culture of the Inuit, therefore, refers primarily to these areas; however, parallels to other Eskimo groups can also be drawn.
The traditional lifestyle of the Inuit is adapted to extreme climactic conditions; their essential skills for survival are hunting and trapping. Agriculture was never possible in the millions of square kilometers of tundra and icy coasts from Siberia to Northern America and Greenland. Therefore, hunting became the core of the culture and cultural history of the Inuit of central and east Arctic. Thus, the everyday life in modern Inuit settlements, established only some decades ago, still reflects the five-thousand year long history of a typical hunting culture which allowed the Inuit peoples and their ancestors to achieve one of the most remarkable human accomplishments, the population of the Arctic.
Europeans in North America used to refer to the Inuit as Eskimos, but the people consider that term pejorative. The colonists and explorers adopted the term "Eskimo" from the Algonquin-speaking peoples' ethonym for the Inuit, as they encountered the Algonquian peoples first when they landed in the coastal areas. It means either "eaters of raw flesh" or "people who live up the coast." The word Inuit is the autonym, the name which the people use for themselves and it means "the people." Its singular form is Inuk.