Nuna
/ˈnuː.nə/noun
A word from Inuit and related languages meaning land or country, also used in English in cultural and geographic contexts.
Did you know?“Nuna” appears in names such as Nunavut, literally “our land,” reflecting how territory and collective identity are linguistically inseparable in Inuit culture.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Eskimo
Proto-Eskimo
*nuna
“Land or inhabited territory”
Old Inuit
Inuit
nuna
“Land; country”
18th–19th Century
Greenlandic
nuna
“Land or country”
20th Century
Inuktitut
nuna
“Land; territory”
1999
English/Inuktitut
Nunavut
“Our land”
Modern English
English
nuna
“Land or country, used as an Inuit loanword and in Indigenous place names”
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