Inuit languages
| Inuit | |
|---|---|
| Ethnicity: | Inuit |
| Geographic distribution: |
Alaska, Canadian Arctic (Nunavut and Inuvialuit Settlement Region), Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Greenland |
| Linguistic classification: |
Eskimo–Aleut
|
| Subdivisions: |
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| Glottolog: | inui1246 |
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The Inuit languages are a closely related group of indigenous American languages traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and to some extent in the subarctic in Labrador. The related Yupik languages are spoken in western and southern Alaska and in the far east of Russia, but are severely endangered in Russia today and spoken only in a few villages on the Chukchi Peninsula. The Inuit live primarily in three countries: Greenland, Canada (specifically in the Nunatsiavut region of Labrador, the Nunavik region of Quebec, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories), and the United States (specifically the coast of Alaska).
The total population of Inuit speaking their traditional languages is difficult to assess with precision, since most counts rely on self-reported census data that may not accurately reflect usage or competence. Greenland census estimates place the number of speakers of varieties of Inuit there at roughly 50,000, while Canadian estimates are at roughly 35,000. These two countries count the bulk of speakers of Inuit language variants, although about 7,500 Alaskans speak varieties of Inuit out of a population of over 13,000 Inuit.
The Inuit languages have a few hundred speakers in Russia. In addition, an estimated 7,000 Greenlandic Inuit live in European Denmark, the largest group outside of Greenland, Canada and Alaska. Thus, the global population of speakers of varieties of Inuit is on the order of nearly 100,000 people.
The traditional language of the Inuit is a system of closely interrelated dialects that are not readily comprehensible from one end of the Inuit world to the other, and some people do not think of it as a single language but rather as a group of languages. However, there are no clear criteria for breaking the Inuit language into specific member languages since it forms a dialect continuum. Each band of Inuit understands its neighbours, and most likely its neighbours' neighbours; but at some remove, comprehensibility drops to a very low level.
As a result, Inuit in different places use different words for its own variants and for the entire group of languages, and this ambiguity has been carried into other languages, creating a great deal of confusion over what labels should be applied to it.
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