Corps de l’article

A cardinal concept in the Inuit and Yupik worlds is that of nuna (also Aleut tana-X), roughly translatable as ‘land.’ The term has been central in recent debates around Inuit land claims and is known to the wider world through the new Canadian administrative terms of Nunavut (‘our land’) and Nunavik (‘big land’), as well as in the official name of Greenland, Kalaallit Nunaat (‘land of the Kalaallit’).[1] Inuit Nunangat refers to the land of the Canadian Inuit as a whole. But does nuna really correspond directly to English land? In discussing the etymology of words for Land and Earth in European languages, Buck distinguishes five main senses (often overlapping and extended differently in different languages): (a) the whole earth (a newer sense, overlapping with ‘world’); (b) the solid surface of the earth (ground, the source of vegetation); (c) the solid surface of the earth vs. the sea; (d) soil; and (e) a definite portion of the earth’s surface, from the land of an individual to a whole country (Buck 1949/1988, 15–17). In Germanic languages the starting point of ‘land’ was sense (e), later extended to (c), replacing ‘earth,’ although in English ‘land’ is largely displaced in meaning by ‘country’ when referring to a supra-individual or national entity in sense (e). It has also developed a sense of ‘countryside’ as opposed to the town or city—compare Greenlandic nunaannarmi below. So, what is the core meaning, the original starting point for Eskaleut nuna? As I shall demonstrate, it is the geographical concept of ‘tundra,’ a meaning still reflected in cognates in distantly related languages of the Eurasian Arctic.[2]

A rich source for the different senses and extensions of the term across the spectrum of Eskaleut languages and dialects is the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary (CED) of Fortescue et al. (1994, 2010), though the definitions given are by necessity simplified and selective compared to actual usage. Further details can be gleaned from dictionaries for the individual languages, and indeed from the wider literature around the land claim debates. My treatment here is purely linguistic, however. The gloss given for the Proto-Eskimo (PE) head entry nuna in the CED is simply ‘land,’ and this is repeated as below (slightly adjusted) for the individual languages/dialects (see the list of abbreviations at the beginning of this paper):

PE nuna ‘land’ [cf. Aleut tana-X ‘land, island, space, place, earth, ground, settlement, country’[3]]

AAY nuna ‘land, place, village, earth, country’

CAY nuna ‘land, place, ground, the earth, animal’s habitat, village, country’ [older Nunivak form luna]

NSY nuna ‘land’

CSY nuna ‘land’ [also ‘floor,’ and note suna ‘soil’[4]]

Sir. [nuna not found—see below for asa and ǝna]

NAI nuna ‘land, earth, inland’

WCI nuna ‘land’

ECI nuna ‘land’[5]

GRI nuna ‘land, earth, dwelling place, native country’

Below this entry appears a number of derived forms, as simplified below with some variant reflexes and etymological explanations added:

PE nunivaɣ ‘tundra’ [from nuna plus -viɣ ‘real,’ reformulated in most dialects as if with -vaɣ ‘big’; CAY nunapik ‘tundra’ (HBC ‘mound on tundra’); CSY nunivak ‘tundra, roseroot,’ nunavi- ‘gather greens’; NSY nunivak ‘roseroot, vegetation’; NAI nunavik ‘rolling tundra’; WCI Sigliq nunavaaq ‘mainland’; ECI nunivak- ‘pick berries, collect clams’ (and note Nunavik mentioned above); GRI nunavik ‘dry land, continent,’ nuniaɣ- ‘pluck berries’; NG nunivaaq ‘leaf of willow shrub’]

PE nunaɬit- ‘land’ [with affix -ɬit- ‘come across, reach’; ECI nunalit- ‘go inland’; WG ‘come into harbour, come to Greenland by sea’ but also nunniC- ‘land, arrive in country’; ECI nunalitsa(k)- ‘prowl around human dwellings (wild animals)’; CAY nunaɬitǝ-/ nunitǝ- ‘run aground’; Al. tanali- ‘go to such and such a land,’ tanalit- ‘run aground’]

PE nunni- ‘settle’ [with affix -li-’make’]

PE nunanniR- ‘be enjoyable [with -n(n)iR- ‘be good to do’; GRI nuanniR- ‘be enjoyable’; ECI has much distorted aanau- ‘be beautiful’; NG nannaat ‘that’s great!’; PY has nunaki- ‘enjoy oneself’ as well as nunaniR- ‘be fun’ (in NSY ‘be interesting’)]

PE nunavaɣ ‘walrus on ice’ [with -vaɣ ‘big’]

PY nunaŋitǝ- ‘be restless’ [with negative affix -ŋit-; CSY ‘not have enough room’]

PY nunatǝ- ‘visit another settlement’ [with -tǝ- ‘get, catch, go to’; NSY nunataq ‘visitor from another village’]

PI nunat- ‘cache’ [with causative -t- if not the same as nunatǝ- above; WCI Sigliq nuat- ‘accumulate, heap up’; Al. tanat- ‘bury, put underground’]

PI nunatqan ‘fellow countryman, s.o. living in same place as one’ [with -qan/-nqan ‘companion at doing’; PY has nunalgun with -lɣun in the same sense]

PI nunaRžak ‘seal’s den under ice’ [with uncertain affix; WG nunaRsaq, ECI nunaRyaq]

Further related forms in individual dialects can be cited, taken here from various lexical sources and adjusted to the phonemicization of the CED (Berthelsen et al. 1997 and Schultz-Lorentzen 1927 for WG; Robbe and Dorais 1986 for EG; Fortescue 1991 for NG; Schneider 1985 for ECI; Maclean 1980 for NAI; Jacobson 1984 for CAY; Badten et al. 2008 for CSY; Menovščikov 1964 for Sirenikski; and Bergsland 1994 for Aleut). Some of these will be discussed in more detail below. Thus:

GRI nunaannaRmi ‘in the country(side),’ nunasiaq ‘colony,’ nunap iluatiɣuuR- ‘sail inside skerries’ or ‘go down underground,’ nunap timaa ‘interior of the land,’ nunaqaRfik ‘settlement,’ nunaqaR- ‘lives (in a place),’ nunaRsuaq ‘the world,’ nunasi- ‘immigrate, sight land, buy a piece of land,’ nunasunni ‘a smell of earth,’ nunat issittut ‘Arctic , Arctic countries,’ nunniuR- ‘level the ground (for construction),’ nunaRpasiC- ‘wind comes from inland,’ nunasaRniq ‘foehn wind, from inland,’ nunaat ‘cultivated soil,’ nunaR- ‘touches land (boat pulled up or down on shore),’ nunataq ‘nunatak,’ nunaɣi- ‘live there,’ EG nunat ‘Greenlandic dandelions (taraxacum croceum),’ nunakkaatsiaq ‘stone,’ NG nunaRluit ‘vegetation’

ECI nunayaq ‘the earth, vegetation,’ nunaaRait ‘small flowers,’ nunaaR- ‘go inland, disembark,’ nunalik ‘inhabitant,’ nunaliiRi- ‘cultivate the land,’ nunannguaq ‘map,’ nunakkuuyuuq ‘terrestrial vehicle,’ nunat- ‘go ashore (once),’ nunatuR- ‘eat vegetation,’ nunaRyuaq ‘the world,’ nunamiut ‘inhabitants of the world’ (see below for the latter)

WCI Car. nunataq ‘higher ground’

NAI nunamiut ‘inland Inuit,’ nunaaqqiq ‘village, town,’ nunauraq ‘map,’ nunauruat ‘a nation of people’

AAY niniɬkiR-’play around’ [distorted cognate of PY nunaŋitǝ- above]

CAY nunaRɬuk ‘dirt on floor,’ nunakǝɣtǝ- ‘arrange, make room for,’ nunakuaRcuun ‘car,’ nunanguaq ‘map,’ nunaRpak, ‘the world, city,’ nunaun ‘(land) property,’ nuniuR- ‘digin the earth,’ NSK nunataR- ‘pick berries,’ Nunivaaq ‘Nunivak island’

NSY nunalǝk ‘elder of village’

CSY nunaRɬak ‘the world, continent, city,’ nunaaq ‘camp, village, city,’ nunatu- ‘be spacious,’ nunavRuuR- ‘go to a camp’

Aleut tanaRi- ‘live in a place, stay home, hunt on land,’ tanaðɣusi-X ‘settlement, village,’ tanasx- ‘field, hunting and fishing area,’ tanalRit- ‘settle, take land,’ tanaanu- ‘go back to village in boat, approach land,’ tanuli- ‘remove (people) from their place,’ tanatu- ‘beroomy, spacious’

Now we can compare this array of meanings for nuna and its derivatives with those given by Buck for English ‘land.’ Thereafter we can relate the core meaning and its variations to the geographical and economic settings of the different groups of Eskaleut speakers. Perusal of the forms given above suggest that Buck’s senses (b) ‘the solid surface of the earth (ground, the source of vegetation)’ and (c) ‘the solid surface of the earth vs. the sea’ are the most relevant— the prevalence of derived terms involving the latter sense clearly indicates usage by predominantly coastal people. The sense (e) ‘a definite portion of the earth’s surface, from the land of an individual to a whole country’ is certainly relevant, but in the whole country (or nation) sense it is a more recent development in colonial and postcolonial times. It can be assumed that knowledge of a distinct territory associated with one’s own tribe or dialect has always been possible to describe as ‘our nuna’ or the like. Buck’s ‘whole earth’ sense (a) is clearly assignable to modern times, presupposing knowledge of the unity of the planet as a whole, although the meaning ‘all of the known world’ could be much older. The ‘soil’ meaning (d) is naturally limited (though present), not surprisingly given the limited extent of cultivatable soil in the Arctic.[6]

But there are also nuances to the nuna concept that are not covered by Buck’s five senses. For a start. there is the association with a particular kind of vegetation and activities associated with it—in particular berry picking on the tundra, a particularly pleasant occupation in summer months, presumably the source of the “enjoyable” derivations liker PE nunanniR- above. Contrasting with this in an interesting way is PY nunaŋitǝ- ‘be restless’ or ‘not have enough room,’ literally ‘to lack nuna’; it suggests being in some way confined from or prevented from going out onto the wider tundra (to hunt or to pick berries?). The opposite is reflected in CSY nunatu-, Aleut tanatu- ‘be roomy, spacious’ (with affix -tu- ‘have a large’). Then there are the important ‘village, settlement’ meanings not covered by ‘land’; I shall return to these below. Other developments, like the extension to terms for ‘walrus on ice’ and ‘seal’s den under the ice,’ are very specific to the Arctic environment.

But perhaps the most telling clue as to the core meaning is provided by the derived PE form nunivaɣ/nunaviɣ ‘tundra,’ i.e., ‘real nuna,’ which must be very old given both the transparent meaning and the irregular variations in form in the individual languages concerned. All the other meanings can be seen to be extended from nuna in this sense rather than from (e), the individual territory sense from which the corresponding terms in Germanic languages developed, according to Buck. The core meaning could reasonably have referred originally to the whole of the Arctic tundra that the nomadic ancestors of the Inuit and Yupiit travelled through and eventually settled in. The parcelling up into distinct tribal territories (however large or small) presupposes an end to the nomadic phase and the beginning of a sedentary—at least a seasonally sedentary—one. The tundra of Eurasia and North America is, of course, confined by its proximity to the Arctic coasts, so ‘coming to land from the sea’ and ‘coming to the tundra’ would be virtually synonymous, although extensions could specify going further into the tundra from the coast.

Corroborating the core ‘tundra’ sense of nuna is a group of derivatives focusing on the typical edible vegetation on the tundra, berries and roots. Thus WG nuniaɣ- ‘pluck berries,’ which appears to be a direct verbalization of PE nunivaɣ/nunaviɣ, as also in ECI nunivak- ‘pick berries’ (extended also to ‘collect clams,’ another ‘food of the land’). ECI further has nunatuR- ‘eat vegetation’ (with -tuR- ‘consume’) and nunayaq ‘the earth, vegetation’ (probably with -yaq ‘piece of’). CAY (NSK dialect) has nunataR- ‘pick berries,’ while other CAY dialects have unataR-, suggesting contamination with una- ‘work with the hands,’ and CSY has nunivi- from nunivaɣ plus -(l)i- ‘make,’ which in Aleut can also mean ‘gather’ and ‘go to.’ EG has the interesting form nunat ‘Greenlandic dandelions’ (the plural form of nuna)—compare ECI nunaaRait ‘small flowers’ (with -aRaq ‘small’). NG has nunivaaq ‘Arctic willow leaf’ and nunaRluit ‘vegetation,’ apparently with -(R)luk ‘bad’ (compare CAY nunaRɬuk ‘dirt on floor’), and, finally, WG has nunasunni ‘the smell of earth’ (surely the subtle smell of the tundra).

There are plausible etymological links between nuna and cognates in other Siberian languages that further corroborate this claim. As I propose in Fortescue and Vajda (forthcoming), in which the hypothesis of a distant genetic relationship between the circumpolar “Uralo-Siberian” languages (Uralic, Yukaghir, and Eskaleut) is argued for, nuna appears to derive via an earlier form *n’ula (with palatal /n/) from Proto-Uralo-Siberian *n’urV (with uncertain final vowel) as in FU n’urmi ‘meadow’ (Sammallahti 1988) and Yukaghir n’oro- ‘moss, swamp’ (Nikolaeva 2006).[7] Note that PUS */r/ corresponds to PE /l/. An example of a different cognate showing both correspondences can be seen in Finno-Ugric n’arV/ n’oriV ‘skin without fur’ and Yukaghir n’a:r ‘bare patch on fur,’ going with PE nalu(C)aR ‘bleached sealskin’ (with a further suffix). The analysis above assumes nasal assimilation-at-a-distance. The older Nunivak form luna mentioned above would support this (with metathesis or simply sporadic initial /l/ < /n’/ as in HBC lǝvǝ- from *n’ǝvǝ- above). Terms meaning ‘swampy meadow’ within the circumpolar context could certainly refer to the same kind of treeless topography as nuna. Alone of the Eskaleut languages, Sirenikski (now extinct) lacked a cognate of nuna, which was covered instead by two other common stems, asa ‘ground, tundra, bottom of cliff’ (the last reflecting the CSY meaning, from PY aci ‘area below,’ ultimately from PE at- ‘below’) and ǝnǝ ‘place, dwelling,’ ǝna ‘settlement’ (from PE ǝnǝ ‘place, house, home’—Aleut locative na-ɣa-n ‘in it’), both of which appear to have Siberian cognates.[8] Sirenikski, note, probably represents the one recorded Eskimo language that never left the Asian side of Bering Strait.

The specialization of cognate tana-X in Aleut to refer principally (especially in the western dialects) to whole islands—hardly describable as ‘tundra’ despite the lack of trees—is quite natural, given the archipelagic setting of that language. But most of the basic meanings of PE nuna are to be found there, including tanaRi- ‘live in a place, stay home, hunt on land’ (with -Ri- ‘have as’),[9]tanasx- ‘field, hunting and fishing area’ (with -sx- found in place names, probably going with PE -lǝɣ ‘having’),[10]tanalRit- ‘settle, take land’ (with -lRi-t- ‘get, provide with’), and tanaanu- ‘go back to village in boat, approach land’ (with -Vnu- ‘go towards’).

How would the extension between this hypothetical core sense of nuna and that of the individual settlement or village have developed? The sense of the individual tribal or dialect territory must be intermediate here, and with the concentration of single tribes in specific places for most of the year, these permanent settlements would have easily become associated with the whole territory as such. The process of concentration in settlements has, of course, continued apace into recent times. The path from ‘tundra’ to ‘the whole earth’ can also be plotted against the widening knowledge of the world brought in by missionaries and explorers, though as said, earlier concepts of the whole known world (essentially consisting of tundra and bordering mountains and sea) would no doubt have predated such contact, perhaps in the accounts of the spiritual travels of shamans. Terms such as Greenlandic nunaRsuaq ‘big nuna’ probably reflects this. Note also the CSY equivalent, nunaRɬak ‘the world, continent, city’ (similarly CAY nunaRpak), indicative of a wide range of sizes covering both the ‘whole earth’ and the ‘individual settlement’ senses. At the other end of the scale is GRI nunaqaRfik ‘settlement, village’ (literally ‘place having its (own) nuna’), CSY ‘camp, village’ (but also ‘city’), and Aleut tanaðɣusi-X ‘settlement, village’ (with -ðɣusi-X ‘place of’). Note also PY nunatǝ- ‘visit another settlement.’ WG nunasiaq (literally ‘acquired nuna’) has today the specific sense—‘colony’—but earlier (in Schultz-Lorentzen 1927) had the broader sense ‘place where one has settled,’ based on the verbal form nunasi-, which can mean ‘sight land,’ ‘buy a piece of land,’ as well as ‘immigrate to another land,’ displaying a wide range of senses of nuna. The modern, national sense of ‘land’ or ‘country’ is seen in WG nunat issittut ‘Arctic countries’ (literally ‘freezing cold nunas’). In contemporary ECI nunaquti (‘one’s belonging nuna’) is apparently used of legally owned property as opposed to the open tundra (reviewer’s comment).

To return for a moment to Sirenikski asa in the sense ‘ground, tundra,’ this is not only cognate with PY (and Aleut) aci ‘area below,’ but probably also with PI aci ‘somewhere vague or remote, out in the open, away from the settlement’ (as in acivaq- ‘go away from settlement’), which has further negative connotations such as aciu-’be useless or wasted,’ presumably from the ‘down’ sense. This suggests a shift in relationship to the tundra once permanent settlements were established. From this perspective, the tundra is now the wilderness for hunting and food gathering, but not a place to stay out in for long. Hence asimiut ‘inhabitants of small settlements’ in West Greenlandic, literally ‘remote area dwellers,’ as opposed to those who live in larger, permanent villages. The concept of the tundra has become ambivalent in its connotations, now referable to by two different stems.

Nuna is also ingredient in many topological/environmental terms specific to the Arctic—nunataq (with -taq ‘thing pertaining to’), referring to a rocky protrusion from the Inland Ice of Greenland, has, of course, entered the languages of the world. Compare Caribou WCI nunataq ‘higher ground,’ which suggests the original meaning of ‘tundra’ in Saami of treeless higher ground. Other terms in WG include nunap timaa ‘interior of land’ (literally ‘the nuna’s body or main part’), nunasaRniq ‘foehn wind, from inland’ (probably a nominalization with -saR- ‘fetch from’), and nunap iluatiɣuuR- ‘sail inside skerries’ (literally ‘go by the nuna’s interior’). It is also widespread in place names like Nunivaaq (the large tundra-covered island in Alaska, Nunivak Island) and Nunap isua (Kap Farvel at the southernmost tip of Greenland, literally ‘nuna’s end’). EG nunakkaatsiaq ‘rock, stone’ (with affixes probably meaning ‘small’ and ‘medium-sized,’ respectively) reminds us that true tundra gives way in some parts of the inhabited Arctic to hard rock and ice. The relationship between maps and the land was well known to Inuit (cf. Spink and Moodie 1972), as still reflected in the words for ‘map’ in ECI nunannguaq, NAI nunauraq, and CAY nunaŋuaq (all with PE -ŋ(ŋ)uðaR ‘little, thing like a’). See Fortescue (1988) for reproduction of such a map for the Igloolik region by shaman Ewerat, drawn for Parry in 1824. The general correspondence of dialect region and specific tribal territory can be seen in terms of common local orientation terms and directions, as discussed in that work. It makes sense that basic directional terms should hold over such a larger region (the broader tribal nuna) for speakers of the same dialect/language in order to communicate about directions while travelling around within it, despite the same terms having a more coast-relative orientation in the immediate environs of the settlement. Thus, in all of West Greenland avani refers to ‘in the north,’ whereas the av- directions varies locally according to the immediate orientation of the coast. The reverse holds for all of East Greenland, where the same stem refers to the south. And in Ewerat’s map for the Igloolik region kanangnak (the prevailing north or northeast wind term) is given as cardinal ‘north,’ although the direction kan- of the stem (‘down to the beach’) must change continually along the convoluted coastline.

Mention should be made here of another term referring to one’s surroundings, PE avan/avatǝ ‘area around,’ from demonstrative root av- ‘over there (extended)’—in CAY also ‘moving away from speaker’ or ‘that speaker moves away from’ (as also with Aleut cognate aw(a)-).[11] This is a rather vague, neutral expression, without the numerous connotations of nuna. It can refer to land or sea or just the immediate surrounds of the house. In CSY it is just ‘area on the other side’ of something, and in WG it generally means ‘off from land’ (and possessed form avataa ‘off from the coast’), just as avalaC- from the same root means ‘set off (to sea)’ or specifically ‘sail to Denmark from Greenland.’[12] There is a verbal derivation in PE avatǝŋiR- ‘surround’ or ‘go around’ (with -ŋiR-’remove’). The root itself, PE av-, and the corresponding wind term avannaq has been specialized in West Greenland to the direction ‘north’ (‘south’ in East Greenland), i.e., ‘right along the coast looking out to sea.’ The coastal sense of the root (though no longer pointing north) can also can also be found in some Eastern Canadian Arctic dialects. Nowhere does it refer, like nuna, to the land one lives in.

For a native speaker’s perspective on nuna in a still broader sense, consider Jose Kusugak’s remarks on the relationship of Canadian Inuit to their Arctic homeland, here specifically referring to Nunavut, which covers several specific tribal regions (Dahl et al. 2000, 20):

In Inuktitut—the language of the Inuit—Nunavut is a composite word made up of the root word, “nuna” or “land,” and a suffix “vut” or “our.” Thus Nunavut means “our land” in English. The place of the term “Nunavut” in the everyday conversation of generations of Inuit has reflected ancient truths about Arctic demography and culture. The Inuit have been, and the Inuit remain, the aboriginal people of Nunavut. We have lived in the Arctic for many thousands of years. The Arctic has sustained and defined us. We are part of the Arctic landscape and seascape and the Arctic landscape and seascape are a part of us. A more subtle, but no less authentic, English interpretation of Nunavut is “Our Home,” not just “Our Land.”

As we have seen, the word nuna is truly pan-Eskaleut, covering all of the territory lived in by modern Inuit, Yupiit and Unangan (Aleuts). In this it is more inclusive than these specific ethnonyms themselves. Both inuk and yupik (‘real yuk’) are idiosyncratically from PE iŋuɣ or iŋyuɣ ‘human being.’[13] This, in turn, is probably cognate with Aleut iŋ(i)yu-X ‘(living) body,’ as described in Fortescue et al. (2010, 150), where further examples of the irregular correspondence of */ŋ/ to /n/ in Inuit and /y/ in Yupik in this position are given. The ultimate source of iŋuɣ/iŋyuɣ may well be something like *wayŋ-yuɣ, reflecting PUS *wayŋV- ‘breath’ plus PE nominal affix -yuɣ ‘one that tends to (be) –’ (PUS initial /w-/ disappears in PE, and /yŋ/ is not an allowed PE cluster). Compare Proto-Uralic wayŋɨ ‘breath’ (Sammallahti 1988, 541; see further in Fortescue and Vajda, forthcoming). For a parallel to the present etymology—but from a different stem—compare Aleut anR- ‘breath, life, spirit’ (anRa-Ri- ‘live,’ anRaRi-naX ‘human being’). Aleut ethnonym unaŋan/unaŋas is from demonstrative una- ‘(those) down along the coast’ rather.

But this raises the interesting question of what “land” or “home” meant for the nomadic ancestors of the present people, who presumably first entered North America from Siberia as the so-called Paleo-Eskimos some five thousand years ago, later to be replaced by “Neo-Eskimo” groups, the modern Inuit, and Yupiit, by now admixed with new people on the Asian side, as they spread in turn across the Arctic in connection with the Thule migrations.[14] A clue is provided by the corresponding nomenclature of more recently nomadic neighbours, the Chukotkans, whose general term nutae- refers to ‘land, country, ground, tundra’ but not to ‘settlement, village,’ for which another term, nǝm(nǝm), is used, a word widely found across Siberia referring to a nomadic dwelling of a more temporary kind (Fortescue 2005).[15] The Chukotkan term nutae- may in fact be a borrowing from the Eskaleut speakers who preceded them in Chukotka as they moved up from below the tree line in pre-historic times (nutae- from early or pre-PE *n’ula?), perhaps as early as the end of the first millennium BC, the time of the Old Koryak culture on the Okhotsk Sea coast (Lebedintsev 1998). The basic Chukotkan form is a reduplicated singulative nutaenut, while a different singulative form nutae-lqǝn means ‘ground, earth.’[16] The same connotation of tundra vegetation is present in derivatives like Chukchi nota-nta- ‘go and fetch s.th. from the open country such as berries and roots.’ The Kolyma Yukaghirs called a nomadic tribe of the tundra north of them (probably Chukchi or Even) čorqǝd’i, literally ‘tundra people’ from čor(qǝ)- ‘glade, clearing, tundra,’ originally ‘firm, hard’ (Nikolaeva 2006, 141).[17] Note that Uralic- and Chukotkan-speaking people as well as the Yukaghirs moved north onto the tundra much later than the Paleo-Eskimos; Uralic people reached the Arctic coast no earlier than a millennium ago, according to Janhunen (2009, 74) and the maritime Chukotkans no earlier than the appearance of the Neo-Eskimo (Inuit/Yupiit) cultures around Bering Strait somewhat more than two millennia ago.

Words for moving around nomadically across the tundra cut cross the major language boundaries. The widespread stem reconstructible in PUS as *muɣ(e)- is quite literally a “Wanderwort,” attested in Yupik as məɣə-/muɣu- ‘go off far,’ in Chukchi as muu-/mɣu- ‘nomadic’ (and muulʔǝn, Koryak mǝɣulRǝn ‘nomadic caravan’), in Samoyedic as müə ‘day’s journey by caravan’ (and müətǝ, Nenets m’ud, Nganasan myðǝ ‘tent caravan’), and in Yukaghir as myðo- ‘nomadise, roam.’ In CAY it is specifically ‘not want to go back to one’s undesirable former living conditions,’ and in CSY ‘go far in the distance, move from place to place, be a caravan of travelers in the distance.’ It is quite possible that PE nuɣǝt-/n’uɣǝt- (WG nuut-) ‘move (from one place to another)’ is also related, though the relationship is more obscure. The CAY correlate nuxtaXtǝ- is ‘move from one place to another,’ and NAI yuɣǝt-, SPI yukpak- is ‘travel around.’[18] The PI derivative nuktǝq- (WG nutsiR-), apparently with -lǝR-/-tǝR- ‘quickly,’ is ‘move to another dwelling.’ Perhaps there is influence here from nuna, causing conflation between two originally distinct stems. The sense of *nuɣǝt- overlaps in any case with that of *muɣ(e)-.

Perhaps, then, for the original peoples of the Arctic tundra, “home” was that portion of the tundra that they regularly travelled around, and this has remained so for the groups that, with time, became sedentary in particular regions, such as the modern Inuit and Yupiit, each group with their perspective on the boundaries of nuna, ranging from the most local settlement and its environment to the wider tribal or dialect region and finally to the whole known world.[19] They are all in a sense nunamiut ‘dwellers of nuna.’ These people (including the Unangan) all share a common demonstrative-based orientation system with local coastal, island, and riverine variants. Today the term nunamiut refers mainly to the inland Inuit of Anaktuvuk Pass in Alaska (who live in a prototypical upland tundra region), but in the past it was apparently also applied to the inland dwellers of Arctic Quebec and Labrador (reviewer’s comment). In older WG, according to Schultz-Lorentzen’s dictionary, it meant ‘earth dwellers’ (as contrasted with spirits).[20] In CAY and WG (and apparently elsewhere), the related term nunamiutaq has acquired a different meaning, ‘land animal,’ but ‘earth’ and ‘land’ could surely be replaced by ‘tundra’ as the original meaning in all these instances.

Figure 1

Extent of Arctic tundra

Extent of Arctic tundra

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