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 languages, which are spoken in eastern Siberia and northeastern China, have Eskimo-Aleut loanwords that are not found in Southern Tungusic, implying that Eskimo-Aleut was once much more widely spoken in eastern Siberia. Vovin (2015) estimates that the Eskimo-Aleut loanwords in Northern Tungusic had been borrowed no more than 2,000 years ago, which was when Tungusic was spreading up north from its homeland in the middle reaches of the Amur River. Vovin (2015) considers the homeland ("Urheimat") of Proto-Eskimo-Aleut to be in Siberia rather than in Alaska. Eskimo–Aleut does not have any genetic relationship to any of the world's other language