Can a word change a life? This Eskimo word changed mine and made me curious about a people who could create such a word. I’ve spent the last quarter of a century turning it over in my mind like a gleaming pebble in the palm of the hand, pondering what I could build from it.
First up, an entire website to celebrate its hues and colours, as I see them. Please visit, and if you like it, sign up for regular injections of inspiring ideas, quotations and shared moments: www.nuannaarpoq.com
‘They have a quality of nuannaarpoq, of taking extravagant pleasure in being alive; and they delight in finding it in other people.’
See also my bestellar review of this wonderful book, complete with a mosaic of quotations, metaphors, triologisms and other alluring Eskimo words.
Source: Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams(London: Picador, 1987), p. 202
