Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

Andrew asked in Social ScienceAnthropology · 10 months ago

Does Eskimo really mean eaters of raw meat ? And even though we fought wars against tribes, in what bad way has the word "Eskimo" been used?

Also..

Europeans speak westernized languages..

What do they expect to be known as, by westerners ?

5 Answers

Relevance
  • 9 months ago

    No. Eskimo comes from the Innu-aimun (Montagnais) word ayas̆kimew. It means "a person who laces a snowshow". It is still in use in Alaska as a word to describe all Alaskan Native peoples (Inuit, Yupik, Aleut, Athabascan etc) but in Canada and Greenland Inuit has been used since 1977. It was not offensive in origin, or by meaning, it just isn't the name most of the circumpolar peoples use for themselves.

    There is no such thing as "westernized languages". There are Indo-European (formerly called Aryan) languages, and most European languages today are in the Indo-European group, but so are Persian/Iranian and most of the languages of India. 

    There are also Uralic languages like Estonian, Hungarian, Finnish and Sami, but other Uralic speakers are in Northern Asia. 

    The language of the Basque people, Euskara, is an outlier, the last surviving language from a family that otherwise went extinct but was probably found in a much larger area of Europe thousands of years ago.

    European languages is a geographical term meaning "all the languages currently spoken in Europe", while Indo-European and Uralic are actual linguistic terms for clusters of recognizably related languages, regardless of where the speakers live.

  • Anonymous
    10 months ago

    Barbarian means someone who eats raw meat and drink blood. 

  • ?
    Lv 7
    10 months ago

    The term Eskimo was once common, but is now sometimes perceived as derogatory, especially in Canada. In Alaska, however, the term Eskimo is commonly used, because it includes both Yupik and Inupiat, while Inuit is not accepted as a collective term or even specifically used for Inupiat (who technically are Inuit). No universal term other than Eskimo, inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people, exists for the Inuit and Yupik peoples.

    The primary reason that Eskimo is considered derogatory is the questionable but widespread perception that in Algonkian languages it means "eaters of raw meat". One Cree speaker suggested the original word that became corrupted to Eskimo might indeed have been askamiciw (which means "he eats it raw"), and the Inuit are referred to in some Cree texts as askipiw (which means "eats something raw").

  • Anonymous
    10 months ago

    "Europeans speak westernized languages"

    I'm not sure what you are trying to say here..

    > What do they expect to be known as, by westerners ?

    They prefer to be known by the names they use themselves for their ethnicities: Inuit, Yupik...

  • How do you think about the answers? You can sign in to vote the answer.
  • Anonymous
    10 months ago

    Yes.  However, that term was coined by outsiders, and is now considered offensive.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.