In which would-be modernizing language does "eskimo" mean "ice cream"?
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Kim Jong-Un has a mission to eliminate bourgeois, foreign, and southern terminology. This story in the Daily Mail by Sabrina Penty, citing the Daily NK, is hardly scholarly, but it gives some examples, and there are other stories online. The Metro in the UK reported that "I love you" (discovered in a love letter during a routine Big-Brother check by the Socialist Patriotic Youth League) was subject to severe state criticism. "Hamburger" has to be called something else (dajin-gogi gyeopppang [double bread with ground beef]) in Korean. "Karaoke" is too Japanese (try "on-screen accompaniment machines" instead). But the most interesting ban was on the phrase "ice cream" ("aiseukeurim 아이스크림). Kim wants it replaced by eseukimo. But doesn't this show that the dear leader is weak on etymology? Isn't it transparently a Koreanized borrowing of English eskimo?
"Eskimo" raises all sorts of questions:
Attested since 1584, from French Esquimau, ultimately from an Old Montagnais term. Ives Goddard's theory, accepted by most linguists today, is that it derives from Montagnais ayaškimew (“snowshoe-netter”). An older theory, defended by John Steckley due to its greater acceptance in Native oral traditions, but discredited[3] by linguists, is that it derives from a term meaning "eater(s) of raw meat".
Usage Note: Eskimo has long been criticized as an offensive term, and many Americans either avoid it or feel uncomfortable using it. In Canada, where Eskimo is especially frowned on, the only acceptable term is Inuit, and Americans have generally come to prefer this name too, knowing it to be a term of ethnic pride. But it is not always understood that Inuit cannot substitute for Eskimo in all cases, being restricted in proper usage to the Inuit-speaking peoples of Arctic Canada and parts of Greenland. In southwest Alaska and Arctic Siberia, where Inuit is not spoken, the comparable term is Yupik, which has not gained as wide a currency in English as Inuit. While use of these more specific terms is generally preferable when speaking of the appropriate linguistic group, none of them can be used of the Eskimoan peoples as a whole; the only inclusive term remains Eskimo. · The claim that Eskimo is offensive is often supported by citing a popular etymology tracing its origin to an Abenaki word meaning "eaters of raw meat." Though modern linguists speculate that the term may actually derive from a Montagnais word referring to the manner of lacing a snowshoe, the matter remains undecided, and meanwhile many English speakers have learned to perceive Eskimo as a derogatory term invented by outsiders in scornful reference to their neighbors' eating habits. See Usage Note at Inuit.
(American Heritage Dictionary 5th ed.)
See also Wikipedia for extensive notes on "eskimo" as an exonym, recent theories about its etymology, and examples of its usage,
One thing is certain, eseukimo. doesn't mean "ice cream", except in the dear leader's febrile mind.
Selected readings
- "In North Korea, it's a dire crime to speak like a South Korean, part 2" (7/3/23)
- "In North Korea, it's a dire crime to speak like a South Korean" (4/21/23)
- "Hockey language divergence between North Korea and South Korea" (2/11/18)
- "Some remarks from North Korea on language" (Pinyin News [12/13/07])
- "Ban loan words, says North Korea" (Pinyin News [12/19/08])
- "'Bad' borrowings in North Korean" (12/3/16)
- "Is Korean diverging into two languages?" (11/6/14)
- "Is Korean diverging into two languages?, part 2" (5/4/22)
wgj said,
September 26, 2025 @ 9:19 pm
If we accept the prescriptive principle, then whatever is being used by a large number of users of the language is automatically correct, regardless how wrong it originally was. False etymologies, including folk etymologies, are nonetheless valid etymologies. If the dear leader can force his invented word into widely use, then wouldn't it be correct simply on the basis of usage pattern?
Jonathan Smith said,
September 26, 2025 @ 10:13 pm
Internet says eseukimo 에스키모 means 'hard ice cream' in NK due to the (once?) popularity of the (U.S.) Eskimo Pie ice-cream bar brand (by way of USSR?). Apparently "Eskimo Pie" > "Edy's Pie" at least in the U.S. market c. 2021…
jhh said,
September 26, 2025 @ 10:23 pm
I have a friend whose mother was Inupiak, and whose older siblings all spoke Inupiak… He grew up in an Alaska town, and whale blubber with berries gathered from the fields was a favorite treat. He got his PhD in anthropology from a major US university… and he says that in his circles, people get upset when they are called "Inuit." He says "Inupiak" and "Yupik" are nice in-group terms, but to present a united front to the outside world, both Alaskan groups prefer to be called "Eskimo."
Sergey said,
September 26, 2025 @ 10:39 pm
"Eskimo" does mean "ice cream" in Russian, more specifically "chocolate-covered ice cream on a stick", although in 1930s-1950s when ice cream wasn't available in most of the USSR but only in Moscow and Leningrad, eskimo might have been the only ice cream, and thus a general word for ice cream too. At least it looks this way from the literature of that period. So Kim's borrowing is probably from Russian. Although in Russian it obviously also came from English (and there still is the "Eskimo pie" ice cream brand in the US).
Eric TF Bat said,
September 27, 2025 @ 1:23 am
The chocolate-covered ice-cream in question is now called a Polar Pie in Australia, apparently. I remembered them having two slices of (stale, unappetising) biscuit enclosing the ice-cream, but for some reason I never paid much attention so that may be a regional variation, or something else entirely. At any rate, yes, the E-word is more likely to refer to ice-cream than to people in the general region of the Arctic nowadays, I think, at least here on the part of the world that's as far as possible from the home of the latter.
Jim Mack said,
September 27, 2025 @ 7:29 am
"…the comparable term is Yupik, which has not gained as wide a currency…"
I dunno, here in the midwest they're well-known for their apple and strawberry farms.
languagehat said,
September 27, 2025 @ 9:52 am
I was coming here to say the same thing Sergey said, only more firmly: it's definitely from Russian эскимо (see illustration there), which derives from the Eskimo Pie brand (and note that it is a different word from эскимос 'Eskimo'). Since the Russian word was borrowed into other languages of the USSR (e.g., Uzbek), and North Korea was under massive Russian influence in the 1950s, I think we can eliminate the "probably."
Isikyus said,
September 27, 2025 @ 8:14 pm
@Eric TF Bat
The other use of the word in Australia, of course, is the shortened form that gives us "esky".
AntC said,
September 28, 2025 @ 12:40 am
the part of the world that's as far as possible from the home of the latter.
Aww, NZ would be slightly further away. Eskimo Pie current up to 2020, still well remembered.
David Marjanović said,
September 28, 2025 @ 8:26 am
Unilever's brand of ice cream is called Eskimo in Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Norway and Slovenia. It has different names elsewhere – Good Humor in the US, Walls on the island of Britain specifically, Langnese with ngn in Germany, Инмарко in Russia, 和路雪 in the PRC…
David Marjanović said,
September 28, 2025 @ 8:27 am
Argh, no, Wall's. Also HB Wall's in Northern Ireland and Kwality Wall's in India.
CuConnacht said,
September 28, 2025 @ 1:15 pm
I can remember a gentleman walking the beach at Nice in 1968 calling out "Esquimaux . . .Ice cream . . . chocolat glacé." I didn't have the money for such things at the time, but I imagined he was selling things like Good Humor bars.
Roscoe said,
September 28, 2025 @ 1:47 pm
There’s a 1978 Israeli film with the Hebrew title “Eskimo Limon,” or “Lemon Popsicle” in English. (In the Anglosphere, it’s best known for being remade as “The Last American Virgin.”)