"Compares cognates found in the modern Eskimo languages ranging from northeastern Siberia, across Alaska and Canada, to East Greenland. Includes five Inuit dialect groups, the four Yupik languages, and Sirenikski. Aleut cognates are added when available"--Provided by publisher.

The most comprehensive Yup'ik dictionary in existence, the second edition of this important work now adds extensive research on Central Alaskan Yup'ik, enhancing the forty years of research done by Steven A. Jacobson on the Yup'ik language and dialects. Over these decades, Jacobson has combed through records of explorers, linguists, missionaries, and anyone who has come in contact with the actively migratory Yup'ik people. Combined with information from native Yup'ik speakers, that research has led to a richly detailed dictionary that covers the entire language and all its dialects. The dictionary also offers sections on Yup'ik spelling, early vocabulary, demonstrative words, and important intersections of Yup'ik language and culture such as the kayak, dogsled, parka, and old-style dwellings.

The Inuktitut dialect of Inuit, a member of the Eskimo-Aleut language family, is spoken by over 30,000 natives of eastern Canada, including Quebec and Nunavut. It is easily understood throughout the Inuit communities of Canada, Greenland, and northern Alaska. This unique dictionary encompasses almost every word spoken by the Inuit peoples of North America, including a good many ways to say snow, though fewer than rumoured. Care had been taken to include terms unique to particular Inuit communities. Readers will also find special grammar appendices, a introduction to the language's writing system, and sections with family terms and geographic names. All entries have been romanised for easy use.

Related words from the modern Eskimo languages are grouped together in comparative sets with English equivalents. Ten linguistic varieties are compared, including five Inuit dialect groups, the four Yupik languages, and Sirenikski. Separate sections are devoted to derivational suffixes, inflectional endings, and demonstratives. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This volume is the first comprehensive comparative dictionary to cover the whole of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan family. The genealogical status of this family (whether from a common source or due to convergence) has long been controversial, but its coherence as a family can now be taken as proven. Its geographical position between Siberia and northernmost America renders it crucial in any attempt to relate the languages and peoples of these large linguistic regions. The dictionary consists of cognate sets arranged alphabetically according to reconstructed proto-forms and covers all published lexical sources for the languages concerned (plus a good deal of unpublished material). The criterion for setting up Proto-Chukotian sets is the existence of clear cognates in at least two of the four languages: Chukchi, Koryak, Alutor, and (now extinct) Kerek, and for Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan sets cognates in at least one of these plus Itelmen. Internal loans between the two branches of the family are indicated - this is particularly important in the case of the many loans from Koryak to modern western Itelmen. Proto-Itelmen sets without clear cognates in Chukotian are listed separately, without reconstructions. The data is presented in a reader-friendly format, with each set divided into separate lines for the individual languages concerned and with a common orthography for all reliable modern forms (given as full word stems, not just 'roots'). The introduction contains information on the distribution of the individual languages and dialects and all sound correspondences relating them, plus a sketch of what is known of their (pre)historical background. Inflections and derivational affixes are treated in separate sections, and Chukchi and English proto-form indexes allows multiple routes of access to the data. A full reference list of sources is included.