Inuinnaq
/i.nu.in.naːq/noun
An ordinary human person, especially one who is not a shaman or other ritual specialist.
Did you know?In traditional Inuit cultural vocabulary, an inuinnaq could be contrasted with an angakkuq—a ritual specialist often translated as a shaman—making the word part of a larger spiritual classification system.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Eskimo-Aleut
PEA
*inuk
“Person or human being”
Proto-Inuit
Proto-Inuit
*inuk
“Human person”
Pre-modern Inuit languages
Inuit
inuk + -innaq
“A person plus a suffix meaning “only,” “merely,” or “ordinary””
19th–20th Century
Inuktitut
inuinnaq
“An ordinary person; a non-specialist human”
Modern English
English
Inuinnaq
“A borrowed Inuktitut term for an ordinary human person”
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