Skræling

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Skræling, plural: skrælingar is what the medieval Norse Greenlanders called the Dorset and Thule people in Greenland when they encountered them, and they used the same name for the inhabitants (possibly the ancestors of the later Beothuk) of North America, specifically present-day Newfoundland ("Vinland"), when they voyaged there.

The word skræling is the only word surviving into modern times from the Old Norse dialect spoken by the medieval Norse Greenlanders. In modern Icelandic, skrælingi means a barbarian. The origin of the word is not certain but it is probably based on the Old Norse word "skrá" which means skin and also as a verb to put in writing (which was done on dried skin in Iceland for the Icelandic Sagas as an example). This would refer to the fact that the inuits (both Dorset and Thule) as well as the other indigenous people the Norse Greenlanders met wore clothes made of skin in contrast to the woven wool clothes worn by the Norse. There have also been guesses that the word comes from the Norwegian word skral or the Icelandic word skrælna. The word skral connotes "thin" or "scrawny". In Norwegian it is often used as a synonym for feeling sick or weak. Skrælna refers to shrinking or drying (plants for example). But nothing in the written medieval texts mentioning skræling uses the term in an adverse sense.

The Greenlandic ethnonym Kalaalleq may be a based on the Norse Skræling (the combination skr is unknown in the Inuit language) or on the Norse klæði (meaning cloth).