563: eskimo Jun 23, 2016

Although the Old World country whose people came in contact with these Americans the most were the Russians, the word 'Eskimo' came through the French, 'Esquimaux': ultimately a Montagnais word, 'ayas̆kimew' which translates as ‘person who laces a snowshoe’. This is not even the first time that a European power named a Native American group after a shoe: notably 'Ojibwa' (see Word Facts December 28, 2015). The name that some Eskimo tribes call themselves is 'husky', most commonly in Eastern North America, so for a while people were called 'huskies' by English speakers too. After the 19th century, especially with the connection to the Newfoundland-dialect word for 'husky'—'Huskemaw'—which sounds somewhat similar to 'Eskimo', the term 'Eskimo' caught on, even though that was the native term used for dogs. In this was, the meaning of 'husky', now a dog, and 'eskimo', now used for people, switched.