Eskimo kissing Eskimo kissing An Eskimo kiss, also called nose kiss or nose rub, is the act of pressing the tip of one's nose against another's nose usually interpreted as a friendly greeting gesture in various cultures. When early explorers of the Arctic first witnessed Inuit nose rubbing as a greeting behavior, they dubbed it "Eskimo kissing". The Eskimo kiss was used as an intimate greeting by the Inuit who, when they meet outside, often have little except their nose and eyes exposed. The Eskimo kiss is employed by the Inuit as a traditional greeting called a "kunik". A "kunik" is a
Eskimo–Aleut languages in which they resemble the Siberian languages more than the North American ones. Eskimo–Aleut languages possess voiceless plosives at four positions (bilabial, coronal, velar and uvular) in all languages except Aleut, which has lost the bilabial stops (though it has retained the nasal). There are contrasting voiced and voiceless fricatives at the same positions, and in the Eskimo subfamily a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is also present. A rare feature of many dialects of Yup'ik and Aleut is contrasting voiceless nasals. The following vowels and consonants were taken from Michael Fortescue et al., 2010 Eskimo /ə/ corresponds to Aleut /i/.