that Eskimo meant 'people who speak a different language'. French traders who encountered the Innu (Montagnais) in the eastern areas adopted their word for the more western peoples and spelled it as Esquimau or Esquimaux in a transliteration.

Some people consider Eskimo offensive, because it is popularly perceived to mean 'eaters of raw meat' in Algonquian languages common to people along the Atlantic coast. An unnamed Cree