Sign languages (was: Re: additions to ISO 639 and the IANA language subtag registry)

Mark Crispin mrc at CAC.Washington.EDU
Tue Feb 21 04:12:05 CET 2006


On Mon, 20 Feb 2006, John Cowan wrote:
>    Eskimo SL (not in 639-3 yet)

Is "Eskimo" really a language?

AFAIK, there are two major "Eskimo" languages: Yup'ik and Inupiaq (also 
called Inuktiut and Kalaalisuit); there are also many dialects.

The people themselves are called either Yuit or Inuit (I've also seen 
Inupiat although that should be the language) depending upon which of the 
two languages they speak.  "Eskimo" is an Indian epithet (hey, fair is 
fair, and I'm part Indian anyway!) although they don't seem to object to 
it particularly strenuously.

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.


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