It was from the baidarka that Aleut men would stand on the water to hunt from the sea.

Three hatch model Aleut baidarka, by Sergie Sovoroff.

Alaskans also use the term Alaska Native, which is inclusive of all Eskimo, Aleut and Indian people of Alaska, and is exclusive of Inuit or Yupik people originating outside the state.

The term " Eskimo " is also used worldwide in linguistic or ethnographic works to denote the larger branch of Eskimo – Aleut languages, the smaller branch being Aleut.

The Eskimo – Aleut family of languages includes two cognate branches: the Aleut ( Unangan ) branch and the Eskimo branch.

An overview of the Eskimo – Aleut languages family is given below:

Many words are formed from entirely different roots than in Siberian Yupik, but even the grammar has several peculiarities not only among Eskimo languages, but even compared to Aleut.

For example, dual number is not known in Sirenik Eskimo, while most Eskimo – Aleut languages have dual, including its neighboring Siberian Yupikax relatives.

The language of the Inuit is an Eskimo – Aleut language.

This suggests that they also spoke an Eskimo – Aleut language, but one quite distinct from the forms spoken in Canada today.

Some have thought two language families, Eskimo – Aleut and Na-Dené, were distinct, perhaps the results of later migrations into the New World.

In his 1987 book Language in the Americas, while supporting the Eskimo – Aleut and Na-Dené groupings as distinct, he proposed that all the other Native American languages belong to a single language macro-family, which he termed Amerind.

The kayak was first made and used by the native Ainu, Aleut and Eskimo hunters in sub-Arctic regions of northeastern Asia, North America and Greenland.

** Arctic: Eskimo – Aleut

* Eskimo – Aleut

The vialis case in Eskimo – Aleut languages has a similar interpretation, used to express movement using a surface or way.

The Central Alaskan Yupik are by far the most numerous of the various Alaska Native groups and speak the Central Alaskan Yup ' ik language, a member of the Eskimo – Aleut family of languages.

These include the Uralic languages of western Siberia ( better known for Hungarian and Finnish in Europe ), the Yeniseian languages ( linked to the Athabaskan languages of North America ), Yukaghir, Nivkh of Sakhalin, Ainu of northern Japan, Chukotko-Kamchatkan in easternmost Siberia, and — just barely — Eskimo – Aleut.

* Eskimo – Aleut: Aleuts, Siberian Yupiks ( Yuits )

The name " Alaska " ( Аляска ) was already introduced in the Russian colonial period, when it was used only for the peninsula and is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning " the mainland " or, more literally, " the object towards which the action of the sea is directed ".

" The name Aleut was given to the Unangan by Russian fur traders in the mid-18th century.

One of the earliest Christian martyrs in North America was Saint Peter the Aleut.

The Aleut Restitution Act of 1988 was an attempt by Congress to compensate the survivors.

Aleut basketry is some of the finest in the world, and the tradition began in prehistoric times. The main method of basketry used by the Aleuts was false embroidery ( overlay ).

One Aleut leader recognized by the State of Alaska for her work in teaching and reviving Aleut basketry was Anfesia Shapsnikoff whose life and accomplishments are portrayed in " Moments Rightly Placed.

The baidara ( large skin boat ) was a large open walrus skin-covered boat used by Aleut families to travel from island to island, as well as, transport goods for trade and warriors to battle.

The compound harpoon was the most prevalent weapon of the Aleut people.

) is the Aleut name for present day Isanotski Strait and means gap, hole, rent, or tear in the Aleut language which was rendered as Isanotski ( or Issanakskie, Isanotskoi, Isanakh etc.

Many languages throughout North America are polysynthetic ( Eskimo – Aleut languages are extreme examples ), although this is not characteristic of all North American languages ( contrary to what was believed by 19th-century linguists ).

Attuan, now extinct ( Bergsland 1997, p. 14 ), was a distinct dialect showing influence from both Atkan and Eastern Aleut.

Aleksey Mironovich Yachmenev ( 1866 – 1937 ) was an Aleut chief who lived in Unalaska.

Along with Aleksey Yachmenev, who like Sivstov was Aleut himself, Sivstov accompanied Waldemar Jochelson on his 1909-1910 ethnological studies on the Aleut.

The name " Alaska " was already introduced in the Russian colonial time, when it was only used for the peninsula and is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning " the mainland ," or more literally, " the object towards which the action of the sea is directed.

500 CE – 1000 CE, successively sweep Arctic North America while having little genetic impact on Native American populations further South, that presumably have origins that date back to the initial colonization of the Americas by modern humans from Asia ( who are the first hominins to live there ), and ancient DNA shows genetic continuity from the Thule to modern Inuit ( whose genetics are remarkably homogeneous ), dominated by the A2a, A2b, and D3 mtDNA haplotypes, while " Haplotype D2 ( 3 %), found among modern Aleut and Siberian Eskimos, was identified at a low frequency in the modern samples but not the ancient.

Inhabited by the Aleut for centuries, the islands, along with the rest of the Aleutians, were first visited by Europeans in 1741, when a Danish navigator employed by the Russian navy, Vitus Bering, was searching for new sources of fur for Russian fur trappers.

Languages within the Paleo-Siberian group are thought by some to be related to the Na-Dené and Eskimo – Aleut families, which survive in slightly larger numbers in Alaska and northern Canada.

Human remains, thought to be of an Aleut dating from about 1000 AD, were discovered in 1980.

Merritt Ruhlen writes that Eurasiatic is supported by the existence of a grammatical pattern " whereby plurals of nouns are formed by suffixing-t to the noun root ... whereas duals of nouns are formed by suffixing-k ." Rasmus Rask noted this grammatical pattern in the groups now called Uralic and Eskimo – Aleut as early as 1818, but it can also be found in Altaic, Ainu, Gilyak, and Chukchi – Kamchatkan, all of which Greenberg placed in Eurasiatic.

In fact, the Eskimo – Aleut languages have about the same number of distinct word roots referring to snow as English does, but the structure of these languages tends to allow more variety as to how those roots can be modified in forming a single word

Aleut arts are still very much alive today and are practiced and taught throughout the state of Alaska.

Also, the Sheldon Jackson Museum, located on the Sheldon Jackson College grounds, is the oldest concrete building in the state, and houses much of Sheldon Jackson's collection as well as other examples of Tlingit, Inuit, and Aleut culture.