Innu

The Innu / Ilnu ("man", "person") or Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh ("people"), formerly called Montagnais from the French colonial period (French for "mountain people", English pronunciation: ), are the Indigenous Canadians who inhabit the territory in the northeastern portion of the present-day province of Labrador and some portions of Quebec. They refer to their traditional homeland as ''Nitassinan'' ("Our Land", ᓂᑕᔅᓯᓇᓐ) or ''Innu-assi'' ("Innu Land").

The ancestors of the modern First Nations were known to have lived on these lands as hunter-gatherers for several thousand years. To support their seasonal hunting migrations, they created portable tents made of animal skins. Their subsistence activities were historically centred on hunting and trapping caribou, moose, deer, and small game.

Their language, which changed over time from Old Montagnais to Innu-aimun (popularly known since the French colonial era as ''Montagnais''), is spoken throughout Nitassinan, with certain dialect differences. It is part of the Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi dialect continuum, and is unrelated to the Inuit languages of other nearby peoples.

The "Innu / Ilnu" consist of two regional tribal groups, with the Innus of Nutashkuan being the southernmost group and the Naskapi being the northernmost group. Both groups differ in dialect and partly also in their way of life and culture. These differences include: * the ''Ilnu'', ''Nehilaw'' or "Western/Southern Montagnais" in the south, speak the ''"l"''-dialect (Ilnu-Aimun or Nenueun / Neːhlweːuːn), and * the ''Innu'' or "Eastern Montagnais" ("Central / Moisie Montagnais", "Eastern/Lower North Shore Montagnais", and "Labrador / North West River Montagnais") live further north; they speak the ''"n"''-dialect (Innu-Aimun) Both groups are still called "Montagnais" in the official language of Crown–Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada. The Naskapi ("people beyond the horizon", ᓇᔅᑲᐱ), who live further north, also identify as Innu or ''Iyiyiw''.

Today, about 28,960 people of Innu origin live in various Indian settlements and reserves in Quebec and Labrador. To avoid confusion with the Inuit, who belong to the Eskimoan peoples, today only the singular form "Innu / Ilnu" is used for the Innu, members of the large Cree-language family. The plural form of "Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh" has been abandoned. Provided by Wikipedia