The confusion over "Eskimo" vs. "Inuit" illustrates the paradoxes that
accompany the many attempts these days to change the names of ethnic groups.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, "Many Americans today either
avoid this term (Eskimo) or feel uneasy using it." For example, a Web site
of the University of Wisconsin School of Education advises teachers, "There
are no 'Eskimo' people."

That would come as a surprise, however, to thousands of Yup'ik-speaking
Eskimos in Western Alaska who much prefer to be called "Eskimo" instead of
"Inuit."

Why? They aren't Inuit.

Steven A. Jacobson, a professor at the Alaska Native Language Center (of the
University of Alaska at Fairbanks), told United Press International, "Yup'ik
speakers say, 'We're Yup'ik Eskimos; our relatives in northern Alaska,
Canada and Greenland are Inuit Eskimos; they aren't Yup'ik, and we aren't
Inuit, but we're all Eskimos.' Yup'ik speakers prefer to be called 'Yup'iks'
.... and -- in contrast to Inuit in Canada -- don't mind the word 'Eskimo,'
but they do not like to be called

"Jim Carter" wrote in message
...

"Floyd L. Davidson" wrote in message
...
You said before that your niece told you how they felt...

The only people I've ever seen get as adamant about it as you
are, are *all* non-Eskimos, and have also all been people who
have limited contact with them at best. (And yes, in my opinion
school teachers typically have limited contact with them,
unfortunately.)

The last school teacher, or former teacher in this case, that I
talked to about it was my daughter. She spent three years going
to school in Albuquerque a few years ago, and told me that a lot
of people objected to her use of the term Eskimo. They'd tell
her she should said "Inuit". She'd politely say, "No, I am
Yupik Eskimo."

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

Floyd: It takes time for some people to adjust to proper and polite
society. It may take years for you to change your outlook on life, as
you
see it, just as it took years for most people in the USA to accept that
certain racial slurs are not acceptable to most people. If you want to
call your Yupik people "Eskimo" then by all means, go ahead, it's your
life, but, please do not refer to the Inuit in the Canadian Far North as
"Eskimo" To do so, you will then be referred to as an uninformed bigot.
I am not "Black" but I would not think it proper to call a black person a
"******" even if "he" calls himself one.

James D. Carter