Editing Inuit languages (section)

== Classification and history ==
The Inuit languages constitute a branch of the [[Eskimo–Aleut languages|Eskimo–Aleut language family]]. They are closely related to the [[Yupik languages]] and more remotely to [[Aleut language|Aleut]]. These other languages are all spoken in western [[Alaska]], United States, and eastern [[Chukotka Autonomous Okrug|Chukotka]], Russia. They are not discernibly related to other [[indigenous languages of the Americas]] or northeast Asia, although there have been some unsubstantiated proposals that they are distantly related to the [[Uralic languages]] of western Siberia and northern Europe, in a proposed [[Uralo-Siberian languages|Uralo-Siberian]] grouping, or even to the [[Indo-European languages]] as part of a [[Nostratic languages|Nostratic]] superphylum. Some had previously lumped them in with the [[Paleosiberian languages]], though that is a geographic rather than a linguistic grouping.

Early forms of the Inuit language are believed to have been spoken by the [[Thule people]], who migrated east from [[Beringia]] towards the [[Arctic Archipelago]], which had been occupied by people of the [[Dorset culture]] since the beginning of the [[2nd millennium]]. By 1300, the Inuit and their language had reached western Greenland, and finally east Greenland roughly at the same time the [[Norse colonization of North America#Norse Greenland|Viking colonies in southern Greenland]] disappeared. It is generally believed that it was during this centuries-long eastward migration that the Inuit language became distinct from the Yupik languages spoken in Western Alaska and Chukotka.

Until 1902, a possible [[Enclave and exclave|enclave]] of the Dorset, the ''[[Sadlermiut]]'' (in modern [[Inuktitut]] spelling ''Sallirmiut''), existed on [[Southampton Island]]. Almost nothing is known about their language, but the few eyewitness accounts tell of them speaking a "strange dialect". This suggests that they also spoke an Inuit language, but one quite distinct from the forms spoken in Canada today.

The Yupik and Inuit languages are very similar syntactically and morphologically. Their common origin can be seen in a number of cognates:
{| class="wikitable"  style="margin:1em auto;" width="70%"
! English !! [[Central Yupik]] !! [[Iñupiatun]] !! [[North Baffin dialect|North Baffin Inuktitut]] !! [[West Greenlandic|Kalaallisut]]
|-
| person || {{lang|esu|yuk}} || {{wikt-lang|ik|iñuk}} {{IPA|[iɲuk]}} || {{transliteration|iu|inuk}} ({{wikt-lang|iu|ᐃᓄᒃ}}) || {{wikt-lang|kl|inuk}}
|-
| frost || {{lang|esu|kaneq}} || {{lang|ik|kaniq}} || {{transliteration|iu|kaniq}} ({{lang|iu|ᑲᓂᖅ}}) || {{lang|kl|kaneq}}
|-
| river || {{lang|esu|kuik}} || {{wikt-lang|ik|kuuk}} || {{transliteration|iu|kuuk}} ({{wikt-lang|iu|ᑰᒃ}}) || {{wikt-lang|kl|kuuk}}
|-
| outside || {{lang|esu|ellami}} || {{lang|ik|siḷami}} {{IPA|[siʎami]}} || {{transliteration|iu|silami}} ({{wikt-lang|iu|ᓯᓚᒥ}}) || {{lang|kl|silami}}
|}

The western Alaskan variants retain a large number of features present in proto-Inuit language and in Yup'ik, enough so that they might be classed as Yup'ik languages if they were viewed in isolation from the larger Inuit world.