The First Landing on Wrangel Island | Page 9

just as the French have incorporated into their speech "le steppeur," "l'outsider," "le high life," "le steeple chase," "le jockey club," etc.--words that have no correlatives in French--so the Eskimo has appropriated from the whalers words which, as verbal expressions of his ideation, are undoubtedly better than anything in his own tongue. One of these is "by and by," which he uses with the same frequency that a Spaniard does his favorite ma?ana por la ma?ano. In this instance the words express the state of development and habits of thought--one the lazy improvidence of the Eskimo, and the other the "to-morrow" of the Spaniard, who has indulged that propensity so far that his nation has become one of yesterday.
The change of the Eskimo language brought about by its coming in contact with another forms an important element in its history, and has been mentioned by the older writers, also by Gilder, who reports a change in the language of the Iwillik Eskimo to have taken place since the advent among them of the white men. Among other peculiarities of their phraseology occurs the word "tanuk," signifying whiskey, and it is said to have originated with an old Eskimo employed by Moore as a guide and dog-driver when he wintered in Plover bay. Every day about noon that personage was in the habit of taking his appetizer and usually said to the Eskimo, "Come, Joe, let's take our tonic." Like most of his countrymen, Joe was not slow to learn the meaning of the word, and to this day the firm hold "tanuk" has on the language is only equalled by the thirst for the fluid which the name implies. Among the Asiatic Eskimo the word "um-muck" is common for "rum," while "em-mik" means water. Even words brought by whalers from the South Sea islands have obtained a footing, such as "kow-kow" for food, a word in general use, and "pow" for "no," or "not any." They also call their babies "pick-a-nee-nee," which to many persons will suggest the Spanish word or the Southern negro idiom for "baby." The phrase "pick-a-nee-nee kowkow" is the usual formula in begging food for their children. An Eskimo, having sold us a reindeer, said it would be "mazinkah kow-kow" (good eating), and one windy day we were hauling the seine, and an Eskimo seeing its empty condition when pulled on to the beach, said, "'Pow' fish; bimeby 'pow' wind, plenty fish."
The fluency with which some of these fellows speak a mixture of pigeon English and whaleman's jargon is quite astonishing, and suggests the query whether their fluency results from the aggressiveness of the English or is it an evidence of their aptitude? It seems wonderful how a people we are accustomed to look upon as ignorant, benighted and undeveloped, can learn to talk English with a certain degree of fluency and intelligibility from the short intercourse held once a year with a few passing ships. How many "hoodlums" in San Francisco, for instance, learn anything of Norwegian or German from frequenting the wharves? How many "wharf rats" or stevedores in New York learn anything of these languages from similar intercourse? Or, for that matter, we may ask, How many New York pilots have acquired even the smallest modicum of French from boarding the steamers of the Compagnie G��n��rale Transatlantique?
From a few examples it will be seen that the usage followed by the Eskimo in its grammatical variations rests on the fixity of the radical syllable and upon the agglomeration of the different particles intended to modify the primitive sense of this root, that is to say upon the principle of agglutinative languages. One or two instances may suffice to show the agglutinate character of the language. Canoe is "o-me-uk;" ship "o-me-uk-puk;" steamer "o-me-uk-puk-ignelik;" and this composite mechanical structure reaches its climax in steam-launch, which they call "o-me-uk-puk-ignelik-pick-a-nee-nee."
For snow and ice in their various forms there are also many words which show further the polysynthetic structure of the language--a fact contrary to that primitive condition of speech where there are no inflections to indicate the relations of the words to each other. It will not do to omit "O-kee-chuck" from this enumeration--a word signifying trade, barter, or sale, and one most commonly heard among these people. When they wish to say a thing is bad they use "A-shu-ruk," and when disapproval is meant they say "pe-chuk." The latter word also expresses general negation. For instance, on looking into several unoccupied houses a native informs us "Innuit pechuk," meaning that the people are away or not at home; "Allopar" is cold, and "allopar pechuk" is hot. Persons fond of tracing resemblances may find in "Ignik" (fire) a similarity to the Latin ignis or the English "ignite," and from "Un-gi doo-ruk" (big, huge) the transition down to "hunky-dory"