Nitassinan

Template:Short description Template:About Template:Infobox country Template:Infobox ethnonym Template:Contains special characters Nitassinan (Template:Langx) is the ancestral homeland, or country, of the Innu, an Indigenous people of Eastern Quebec and Labrador, Canada. Nitassinan means "our land" in the Innu language. The territory covers the eastern portion of the Labrador peninsula.<ref>Nitassinan: The Innu Struggle to Reclaim Their Homeland, Douglas & McIntyre, December 1991, 240pp, by Marie Wadden, Template:ISBN, (book link) Template:Webarchive, (retrieved 11/19/2012)</ref> In the northern reaches of Nitassinan lies St'aschinuw (Template:Langx), the Naskapi homeland.

The first interactions with Europeans were with the Vikings who referred to the Innu as the Skræling. Alongside Helluland (probably eastern Inuit Nunangat) and Vinland (probably Newfoundland), the Greenlandic Norse called the Labrador region of Innu Country Markland.

Etymology

Nitassinan and, the more restrained term Innu Assi, mean "our land" and "Innu Country," respectively, in Innu-aimun. Both centre the root assi ("land"), originating from Proto-Algonquian *axskiy,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> relating it to the aski in Nitaskinan, Ojibwemowin's aki, and the Istchee in Eeyou Istchee,Template:NoteTag each meaning "land" as well.

Nitassinan means "our (excl.) land". It is formed by attaching the prefix ni- ("I; we") and the suffix -(i)nan ("us, but not yours") to the root aski, forming the possessive.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This construction is seen in neighbouring Algonquian languages like Nehiromowin, Anishinaabemowin,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Plains Cree,.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Indeed, Atikamekw and Abenaki use similar constructions to refer to their homelands: Nitaskinan and Ndakinna, respectively.