August, 2013
( এক মুঠো মাটিকেও পৃথিবী মনে করি )
(S/1L/92145 of 2012-2013)

 Eskimos (or Esquimaux) or Inuit–Yupik (for Alaska: Inupiat–Yupik) are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia (Russia), across Alaska (United
States), Canada, and Greenland (Denmark)
 There are two main groups that are referred to as Eskimo: Yupik and Inupiat. A third group, the Aleut, is related. The Yupik language dialects and cultures in Alaska and eastern Siberia have evolved in place beginning with the original (pre-Dorset) Eskimo culture that developed in Alaska.
Approximately 4,000 years ago the Unangan (also known as Aleut) culture became distinctly separate, and evolved into a non-Eskimo culture. Approximately 1,500–2,000 years ago, apparently in Northwestern Alaska, two other distinct variations appeared. The Inuit language branch became distinct and in only several hundred years spread across northern Alaska, Canada and into
Greenland. At about the same time, the technology of the Thule people developed in northwestern
Alaska and very quickly spread over the entire area occupied by Eskimo people, though it was not necessarily adopted by all of them.
 The earliest known Eskimo cultures (pre-Dorset) date to 5,000 years ago. They appear to have evolved in Alaska from people using the Arctic small tool tradition. They probably had migrated to
Alaska from Siberia at least 2,000 to 3,000 years earlier, though they might have been in Alaska as far back as 10,000 to 12,000 years or more. There are similar artifacts found in Siberia going back perhaps 18,000 years.
 Today, the two main groups of Eskimos are the Inuit of northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland, and the Yupik of Central Alaska. The Yupik comprise speakers of four distinct Yupik languages that originated in western Alaska, in South Central Alaska along the Gulf of Alaska coast, and the Russian Far East.
 Two principal competing etymologies have been proposed for the name "Eskimo", both from the Innu-aimun (Montagnais) language. The most commonly accepted today appears to be the proposal of Ives Goddard at the Smithsonian Institution, who derives it from the Montagnais word meaning "snowshoe-netter".[The word assime·w means "she laces a snowshoe" in Montagnais.
Montagnais speakers refer to the neighbouring Mi'kmaqpeople using words that sound very much like eskimo.
 Jose Mailhot, a Quebec anthropologist who speaks Montagnais, however, published a paper in 1978 which suggested that the meaning is "people who speak a different language".
 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 asaskipiw (which means "eats something raw"). The majority of academic linguists do not agree Nevertheless, it is commonly felt in
Canada and Greenland that the term Eskimois pejorative.
 The Inuit Circumpolar Conference meeting in Barrow, Alaska, officially adopted "Inuit" as a designation for all Eskimos, regardless of their local usages, in 1977 However, the Inuit Circumpolar
Council, as it is known today, uses both "Inuit" and "Eskimo" in its official documents.
 In Canada and Greenland the term Eskimo is widely held to be pejorative and has fallen out of favour, largely supplanted by the termInuit. However, while Inuit describes all of the Eskimo peoples in Canada and Greenland, that is not true in Alaska and Siberia. In Alaska the termEskimo is commonly used, because it includes both Yupik and Inupiat, while Inuit is not accepted as a collective term or even specifically used forInupiat (who technically are Inuit). No universal term other than Eskimo, inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people, exists for the Inuit and Yupik peoples.

 In 1977, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference meeting in Barrow, Alaska, officially adopted Inuit as a designation for all circumpolar native peoples, regardless of their local view on an appropriate term.
As a result the Canadian government usage has replaced the (locally) defunct term Eskimo withInuit (Inuk in singular). The preferred term in Canada's Central Arctic is Inuinnaq, and in the eastern Canadian Arctic Inuit. The language is often called Inuktitut, though other local designations are also used.
 The Inuit of Greenland refer to themselves as "Greenlanders" and speak the Greenlandic language.
 Because of the linguistic, ethnic, and cultural differences between Yupik and Inuit peoples there is uncertainty as to the acceptance of any term encompassing all Yupik and Inuit people. There has been some movement to use Inuit, and the Inuit Circumpolar Council, representing a circumpolar population of 150,000 Inuit and Yupik people of Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, in its charter defines Inuit for use within the ICC as including "the Inupiat, Yupik (Alaska),
Inuit, Inuvialuit (Canada), Kalaallit (Greenland) and Yupik (Russia)." However, even the Inuit people in Alaska refer to themselves as Inupiat (the language is Inupiaq) and do not typically use the term
Inuit. Thus, in Alaska, Eskimo is in common usage, and is the preferred term when speaking collectively of all Inupiat and Yupik people, or of all Inuit and Yupik people throughout the world.
 Alaskans also use the term Alaska Native, which is inclusive of all Eskimo, Aleut and Indian people of Alaska, and is exclusive of Inuit or Yupik people originating outside the state. The term Alaska
Native has important legal usage in Alaska and the rest of the United States as a result of the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.
 The term "Eskimo" is also used worldwide in linguistic or ethnographic works to denote the larger branch of Eskimo–Aleut languages, the smaller branch being Aleut.
An overview of the Eskimo–Aleut languages family is given below:
Aleut
Aleut language
Western-Central dialects: Atkan, Attuan, Unangan, Bering (60–80 speakers)
Eastern dialect: Unalaskan, Pribilof (400 speakers)
Eskimo (Yup'ik, Yuit, and Inuit)
Yupik
Central Alaskan Yup'ik (10,000 speakers)
Alutiiq or Pacific Gulf Yup'ik (400 speakers)
Central Siberian Yupik or Yuit (Chaplinon and St Lawrence Island, 1,400 speakers)
Naukan (700 speakers)
Inuit or Inupik (75,000 speakers)
Iñupiaq (northern Alaska, 3,500 speakers)
Inuvialuktun (western Canada; together with Siglitun, Natsilingmiutut, Inuinnaqtun and Uummarmiutun 765 speakers)
Inuktitut (eastern Canada; together with Inuktun and Inuinnaqtun, 30,000 speakers)
Kalaallisut (Greenland, 47,000 speakers)
Inuktun (Avanersuarmiutut, Thule dialect or Polar Eskimo, approximately 1,000 speakers)
Tunumiit oraasiat (East Greenlandic known as Tunumiisut, 3,500 speakers)
Sirenik Eskimo language (Sirenikskiy) (extinct)

Archeologists believe that the ancestors of the Eskimos reached North America by coming across the Bering Strait from Asia. Some believe they arrived as early as 6000
B.C., while others believe the migration occurred as late as 3000 B.C. Many fishing tools of a distinctive type that date from about 2500 B.C. to 1200 B.C. have been found in the Arctic regions of North America; most archeologists believe they were made by ancestors of the Eskimos. The earliest artifacts known to be of Eskimo origin were made after 1200 B.C.
In the 18th century, when Europeans first made extensive contact with the Eskimos, there were approximately 60,000 Eskimos in North America. Contact with the
Europeans exposed Eskimos to new diseases, and epidemics of smallpox, influenza, and measles killed thousands. With the establishment of medical facilities in the 20th century, however, the death rate declined. By the beginning of the 21st century, there were about 132,000 Eskimos, with about 46,000 in the United States, 44,000 in
Greenland, 41,000 in Canada, and 1,000 in Siberia.
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