The
effect can be increased by holding a gun or your hat or anything that
can be seen at a greater distance in the moving hand. The signal "yes"
is made by turning your side to the party and bowing your body forward
several times, forming a right angle at the waist.
The Esquimaux language, though comprising but few words, is one that is
difficult for foreigners to acquire and equally difficult to write,
owing to the existence of sounds that are not heard in any of the
civilized tongues and not represented by any combination of the letters
of the English alphabet. Though somewhat gutural it is not unmusical,
and for the sake of euphony final consonants are often omitted in
conversation. As for instance, the Inuit name for Repulse Bay, Iwillik,
is more frequently called, "Iwillie," a really musical sound. And so
with all such terminations. It is not difficult for a stranger to
acquire a sufficient knowledge of the language to enable him to
converse with the natives who inhabit the coasts and are in the habit
of meeting the whalers who frequent the nothern waters in the pursuit
of their avocation. There is a kind of pigeon English in use in these
regions that enables the strangers to communicate with the natives and
make themselves understood, though they would understand but little of
a conversation between two natives.
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