I Lived With The Eskimos

by
Sydney R Montague

Appendix II - Glossary

The Eskimo language is unwritten. The majority of the sounds are high-pitched, but some sounds take on a different meaning when uttered in a low voice. There are a number of guttural sounds, and words often end in a sort of gulp, as though the speaker gasped for breath. The Eskimo has no word for the pronoun I, nor for the words me, my or mine. He refers to everything as One, his idea being that everything goes to make up a complete whole, and that everyone has an equal share in everything. Each one must work to live. A dead man's possessions, excepting dogs, kyak, sled and omiak, are buried with him. If a son wants to have a rifle, he will have to earn it; he cannot inherit that from his father. The language of the women and girls sounds differently from that of men and boys, so the white man must be careful not to give any word the accent which make it like "woman talk." The words that follow are spelled as they sound to me; another man might use different letters to convey the same idea.