Five Hundred Eskimo Words/Chapter 1

THE Fifth Thule Expedition, which in the years 1921–24, under the leadership of Knud Rasmussen, visited Arctic America, had as its main object the study of the Eskimos from a folkloristic, an archæological, an ethnographical and, partly, also an anthropographic point of view, whereas the study of their language was, at first, not included in the program of the expedition. There was no one who had received any special linguistic training among the members of the scientific staff. In practice this did not put obstacles' in the way of our work. Knud Rasmussen who from his infancy has been quite familiar with the Greenlanders' language and manner of thinking, was able to understand the dialects round Hudson Bay with the greatest ease; neither had the rest of us — in spite of our infinitely smaller knowledge of Greenlandic — any difficulty in our daily intercourse with the Canadian Eskimos, and as to more accurate investigations we received excellent assistance from the intelligent interpreter of the Expedition, the West-Greenlander Jacob Olsen.

We soon realized, however, that even though the linguistic work which we were able to do could never equal that of an expert, it would not be entirely without value when considering the extremely slight material otherwise available from the Central Eskimos. After having consulted with Knud Rasmussen, the present author determined to make an attempt at compiling a list of words from the chief dialects within our principal field of operation, and supplying it with comparative lists from West Greenland and the Thule District at Smith Sound. The assistance which I received from Knud Rasmussen throughout was an essential condition for carrying out the task appointed, and for this valuable assistance it is a pleasure as well as a duty to express my heartfelt thanks. Another faithful collaborator to whom I am greatly indebted is the above​mentioned Jacob Olsen. To the late Professor Vilh. Thomsen I owe a special debt of gratitude for going over my manuscript and making a number of valuable comments; at the same time I must add that I am, of course, personally responsible for possible errors.

I realized from the start that in my linguistic studies chief importance should be attached to the phonetical side of the question, as my other tasks on the expedition and, not least, my limited knowledge of the Eskimo language made it impossible to compile a vocabulary of any considerable length. On the other hand, I thought that even a short list would be able to bring out rather clearly the most important peculiarities. A phonetician would naturally arrange his list with a view to his particular object. Unfortunately, I was not able to do this, because, if for no other reasons, the otherwise amble library of the expedition did not contain the necessary literature, linguistic investigations, as mentioned above, not being included in our tasks. I then determined to choose the words according to another principle. In his pioneering works Rink has shown to what extent ethnography may profit by the results of philology. When choosing by preference the names of such natural conditions and cultural elements as are closely connected with the Arctic existence of the Eskimos, I might hope to contribute towards elucidating the Eskimo culture from a linguistic point of view.

The chapter on pronunciation contains a more detailed account of the phonetic symbols used. Here attention will only be directed to the fact that wherever these symbols are used for rendering words in the text, they are placed within brackets. All other Eskimo words, and only those, are printed in italics. In such cases where it has been possible with certainty to transcribe the different spelling to the system followed here, a transcription has been undertaken; otherwise I have retained the orthography of the author in question.

The chapter on the Eskimo dialects partly supplies a few historical and geographical facts, partly a few remarks on their phonetic aspect. However, these remarks by no means make any pretence to completeness, as the present work is rather to be regarded as a presentation of the material collected.

In the various sections of the list the words are alphabetically arranged, except in such cases where this proceeding proved unpractical (relationship, pronouns, numerals). Whereas I do not think that the first sections of the list require further explanatory remarks, it will, I suppose, be necessary to say a few words about ​the verbs. The transitive verbs are naturally quoted with a suffix and, as is natural and common, in the third person singular. Of the intransitive verbs some are, as far as the Central Eskimo dialects are concerned, quoted in the indicative, others in the noun participle. Perhaps under the influence of the teaching of grammar in the schools, in West Greenland a rather sharp distinction is made nowadays between these two forms, for instance [tikip·ɔq] he comes (indicative), [tikit·ɔq] one who comes, [tusᴀrpᴀra tikit·ɔq] I hear that he has come (participle). This does not apply in quite the same degree to the Central Eskimos who use the participle in many cases where the "correct" West Greenland usage requires the indicative^[1], this being due to the slight difference between the Eskimo noun and verb. In the list of words I have therefore made no attempt at normalizing the forms, but have used the one which I have heard in each individual case.

A number of notes are added to the list, partly relating to positive facts, and partly to linguistic matters. Without pretending to completeness I have attempted to explain deviating terms for the same idea from the meaning of the verbal stems. It is only natural that these notes should be based upon the West Greenland dialects, which are better known than any other. In exceptional cases where they have proved insufficient, other dialects have also been taken into consideration (Labrador, the Mackenzie Delta, North and South Alaska).