Inuit languages

“ Excellent examples of native texts recorded naïvely by natives are contained in the Eskimo publications printed in Greenland, which are devoted both to topics of daily interest and to ancient folk-lore. Similar conditions prevail in the Cherokee material collected by James Mooney, and in some of the daily papers printed in aboriginal languages. Even when good written records are available, control by means of the spoken language is necessary, because the expression of the written language may differ considerably from the spoken form. ”

“ Doubtless there is a community of origin in the Eskimo tongue, and these verbal divergencies may be owing to the want of written records to give fixity to the language, since languages resemble living organisms by being in a state of continual change. ”

“ But when Iceland was colonized at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century, chiefly from western Norway, a separate (western) Norwegian dialect gradually sprang up, at first of course only differing slightly from the mother-tongue. It was not until the introduction of Christianity (about 1000 A.D.) that the language was so far differentiated as to enable us to distinguish, in runic inscriptions and in the literature which was then arising, four different dialects, which have ever since existed as the four literary languages—Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish. ”

“ He is as untiring in his efforts to aid us in our search as in securing food, and there is always a degree of intelligence displayed in whatever he undertakes that is wholly foreign to the Inuit character. Even the stones that he brought into camp bore marks that were most astonishingly like writing. ”

“ Another tale oft told in winter gatherings was one, doubtless in ridicule, of the occasional Inuit who, holding fast to a barren land, came west only to trade and never to live. It is a beautiful legend showing true and abiding love of home and country. Dr. Rink thus translates it: "A man from the east coast of Greenland from love of his home never left it even during the summer-time. ”

“ Standing between Slavic and Teutonic, it is more primitive than
either. Three tribes or peoples of them coexist here: Letts, Jmouds or Samogitians, and Lithuanians proper, as shown on our map. Contact with the Finnic-speaking peoples north of them—Esths, Livs, Tchouds, and Vods—has modified the purity of the Lettic speech considerably. These Finns, in turn, speak a language like that of the Magyars in Hungary, and the Basques, which is not European at all. It is similar in structure to the primitive languages of Asia and of the aborigines of America. ”

“ If they could only rest contented with a fair shot, the Inuits would probably secure more game than they now do, for the most of those I have seen them lose in this way went down after the hunter had approached within easy range—say twelve or fifteen yards. They are so anxious, however, to make a sure thing of it that they often try to get too near. I have frequently timed an Inuit as he started for a seal on the ice, and found it takes about an hour from the time he starts in pursuit until the shot is fired. It is amusing to watch the countenance of the seal through a spy-glass. ”

“ Whoever cuts a whale's body with an iron axe will die. Indeed the use of all iron instruments is forbidden in the village during these four days. These Inuit have a special name (nu-na hlukh-tuk) “for a spot of ground where certain things are tabooed, or where there is to be feared any evil influence caused by the presence of offended shades of men or animals, or through the influence of other supernatural means. This ground is sometimes considered unclean, and to go upon it would bring misfortune to the offender, producing sickness, death, or lack of success in hunting or fishing. ”

“ The Blackfeet are in reality a political and not an ethnical confederation, with at least three distinct languages, and numerous dialects spoken among their dispersed tribes. The same condition is found among the Kiawakaskaia Indians, beyond the Rocky Mountains. In the confluence of the nomad hunters to common centres of trade, speech accordingly fails them for all purposes of intercommunication; and travellers and fur-traders have long been familiar with the growth of a common language at more than one of the chief meeting-places of diverse tribes and races on the Pacific coast. ”

“ From the grammar of Fabricius, the Eskimo was soon known to be a language of long compound words, and of regular, though remarkable, inflections. It was known, too, to be very unlike the better-known languages of Europe and Asia. Finally, it has been admitted to be, in respect to its grammatical structure at least, American.
So much for the ethnographical philology of the Eskimo language as determined by its grammatical structure; upon which we may notice the remarkable antagonism of the two tests. Physically, the Eskimo is a [Pg 291] Mongol and Asiatic. ”

“ Remove a language from its native soil, tear it away from the dialects which are its feeders, and you arrest at once its natural growth. There will still be the progress of phonetic corruption, but no longer the restoring influence of dialectic regeneration. The language which the Norwegian refugees brought to [pg 071] Iceland has remained almost the same for seven centuries, whereas on its native soil, and surrounded by local dialects, it has grown into two distinct languages, the Swedish and Danish. ”

“ The largest part of an Inuit's food is, however, eaten raw. These o-yooks are merely festal occasions, though they occur several times a day, and may happen at any hour of the day or night when the natives are assembled in villages and have plenty of food on hand. ”

“ The Eskimo language, he writes, "is divided into many dialects, which often vary so much that those who speak one are unable to understand the others. The natives of Kotzebue Sound for instance have to use an interpreter in conversing with their countrymen in Norton Sound ”

“ They are generally considered to be connected with the Samoyede, Turkish, Mandchu, and Mongolian languages, that is to say, the ancestor of each of these groups was related to the ancestor of the Finno-Ugrian languages. When, however, identity of vocabulary cannot be proved, it is dangerous to make comparisons on the ground of general grammatical resemblances, because the grammar of agglutinative languages offers few striking peculiarities, and represents a stage of development through which may other languages, certainly the Aryan, have passed. ”

“ I found it under some rubbish in a house at Colombo, and have translated it from one end to the other.
[Pg 234]
"ANGUTIVUN TINA"
[This is a very free translation of the Song of the Returning Hunter, as the men used to sing it after seal-spearing. The Inuit always repeat things over and over again.]
ur gloves are stiff with the frozen blood, Our furs with the drifted snow, As we come in with the seal—the seal! In from the edge of the floe.
Au jana! Aua! Oha! Haq! And the yelping dog-teams go, And the long whips crack, and the men come back, Back from the edge of the floe! ”

“ Any one who has been killed by accident, or who has committed suicide, certainly goes to the happy place.
All Inuit who have been bad—that is, unkind one to another—all who have been unhappy while on this earth, will go to Adliparmiut. If an Inung kills another because he is mad at him, he will certainly go to Adliparmiut.
Kumlien’s remarks on this subject, as well as on other ethnographic subjects, are not trustworthy. He has transferred Greenland tales to Cumberland Sound, though the traditions of these tribes differ materially one from the other. ”

“ Such, though inadequately described, are the newly found Inuits of the Angmagsalik district of East Greenland, the sole surviving remnant of the untutored aborigines of the north polar lands. Their human evolution is of intense interest, as it has been worked out under adverse conditions of appalling desolation as regards their food and their travel, their dress and their shelter, their child-rearing and their social relations. ”

“ It is evident that among the people of the stone age there exists the same inclination to exploit and perpetuate deeds of individual and warlike prowess, that appears not only in modern history as a whole but also in news of current publication.
Acts of kindness, deeds of heroism, and displays of the fair and humble virtues that sweeten daily life are entirely absent from the old Inuit traditions. Yet these "True Tales" depict the honesty of Navfalik, the humanity of Kalutunah, the fidelity of Brönlund, and the devotion of Mertuk. ”

“ Those Eskimos who live in Asia call themselves Yuit, a dialect form of Innuit. They dwell around East Cape and the shore south of it, in immediate contact with the Namollos or Sedentary Chukchis, a Sibiric people, totally different in language, appearance and culture. The Yuits have not at all assimilated to the reindeer-keeping, pastoral habits of the Chukchis, and by their own well-preserved traditions, moved across the straits from the American side, with which they continue commercial intercourse. ”

“ The cold was intense, the land was barren of game, the region seemed accursed in its desolation, while the conditions of travel were hard in the extreme.
The absence of human life was far more distressing to the heroic McClintock than the rigors of the journey, for without Inuit aid the labors and sufferings of his crew and of himself would be unavailing. Was it possible that the region was abandoned by beast [179] and so by man? Was his mission destined to be a failure? Could he succeed without Eskimo help? ”

“ The Han-Kutchi of the sources of the Yukon, speak a dialect of the Kutcha-Kutchi language, yet they understand and are readily understood by the Indians of Frances Lake and the banks of the Pelly. Now these converse freely with the Naha- or Dtché-ta-ut'tinnè, and other Rocky Mountain tribes, whose language resembles the Dog-rib tongue, and who are, in fact, acknowledged members of the Chepewyan nation. Again, the Frances Lake Indians understand the Netsilley, or Wild Nation, who trade at Fort Halkett, on the River of the Mountains ”

“ No philologist familiar with the whole territory has attempted to classify these Hyperborean tongues; different writers refer the languages of all to such particular parts as they happen to be familiar with. Thus the Russian priest Veniaminoff divides the Eskimo language into six dialects, all belonging to the Koniagas, on the 576 Kadiak Islands and the adjacent territory. The fact is Veniaminoff dwelt in southern Alaska and in the Aleutian Isles, and knew nothing of the great inland nations to the north and west. ”

“ Many of the Pacific States' languages bear resemblances to one another, and may therefore be brought more or less under groups and classes. These languages, however, resemble one another too slightly to be called dialects, and in the majority of cases no affiliations of any kind can be traced. But four great languages are found within our territory, or, if we exclude the Eskimo, which is not properly an American language, there remain but three, the Tinneh, the Aztec, and the Maya. ”

“ His father did not see them, but the first Innuits, who saw them, told other Innuits so, and so it continued to his day. Old Innuits tell young Innuits; and when they get to be old, they in turn tell it to the young. "When our baby boy," said he, "gets old enough, we tell him all about you, and about all those kodlunas who brought brick, iron, and coal to where you have been, and of the kodlunas who built a ship on Kodlunarn Island. When boy gets to be an old Innuit he tell it to other Innuits, and so all Innuits will know what we now know." ”

“ Kadlu was an Inuit,—what you call an Esquimau,—and his tribe, some thirty persons all told, belonged to the Tununirmiut—“the country lying at the back of something.” In the maps that desolate coast is written Navy Board Inlet, but the Inuit name is best, because the country lies at the very back of everything in the world. For nine months of the year there is only ice and snow, and gale after gale, with a cold that no one can realise who has never seen the thermometer even at zero. For six months of those nine it is dark ”

“ It remained for the expeditions of Hall, Nares, Greely, Amdrup, Holm, and Mylius-Erichsen to prove by their united observations that there was not only an Inuit settlement on the east coast, but that such [337] natives are the descendants of the true Children of the Ice, who have crossed Grinnell Land, skirted northern Greenland, and thus come eventually to their present habitat. Their fathers were formerly inhabitants of the most northerly lands of the globe, of the lands of Grant, Grinnell, Greenland, and Hazen (or Peary) . ”

“ The Mexican antiquary Mendoza has marshalled far more coincidences of like character and equal worth to show that the Nahuatl is an Aryan dialect descended from the Sanscrit. [39] In fine, any, even the remotest, linguistic connection between American and Mongolian languages has yet to be shown; and any linguist who considers the radically diverse genius of the two groups of tongues will not expect to find such relationship. ”

“ In the way of internal evidence (i.e. the evidence of specimens of language) this is all we have what may be called the fragmentary languages of the South Eastern portion of the United States. Of the Choctah, Creek, Chikkasah, and Cherokee we have an abundance, just as we have of the Algonkin and Eskimo. It is, however, the fragmentary tribes, the probable representatives of the aboriginal population, which we more especially seek. ”