- Yupik languages
The Yupik languages are the several distinct languages of the several
Yupik (Юпик) peoples of western and southcentralAlaska and northeasternSiberia . The Yupik languages differ enough from one another that speakers of different ones cannot understand each other, although they may understand the general idea of a conversation of speakers of another of the languages. One of them, the Sirenik is already a dead language since 1997.The Yupik languages are in the family of
Eskimo-Aleut languages. The Aleut andEskimo languages diverged about 2000 B.C., and the Yupik languages diverged from each other and from theInuit language about 1000 A.D.Geographic distribution of Yupik languages
The Yupik languages are:
# Naukanski (also Naukan): spoken by perhaps 100 people in and around the villages of Laurence (Лаврентия), Lorino (Лорино), and Whalen (Уэлен) on the Chukotka Peninsula of Eastern Siberia.
# Central Siberian Yupik (also Yupigestun, Akuzipik, Siberian Yupik, Siberian Yupik Eskimo, Central Siberian Yupik Eskimo, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Yuit, Asiatic Eskimo, Jupigyt, Yupihyt, Bering Strait Yupik): spoken by the majority of Yupik in theRussian Far East and by the people onSt. Lawrence Island , Alaska. Most of the 1,000 Yupiks on St. Lawrence Island still speak the St. Lawrence dialect of this language. About 300 of the 1,000 Siberian Yupiks in Russia still speak the Chaplino dialect of this language.
# Central Alaskan Yup'ik (also Central Yup’ik, Yup’ik, West Alaska Eskimo): spoken on the Alaska mainland fromNorton Sound down to theAlaska Peninsula and on some islands such as Nunivak. The name of this language is sometimes spelled "Yup’ik" because the speakers say the name of the language with an elongated 'p'; all the other languages call their language "Yupik". Of the about 21,000 Central Alaskan Yupiks, some 13,000 still speak this language. There are several dialects of Central Alaskan Yupik. The largest dialect, General Central Yupik or "Yugtun", is spoken in theYukon River , Nelson Island,Kuskokwim River , andBristol Bay areas. There are three other Central Alaskan Yupik dialects:Norton Sound ,Hooper Bay /Chevak, andNunivak Island (called "Cup’ik" or "Cup’ig"). The dialects differ in pronunciation and in vocabulary. Within the General Central Yupik dialect there are geographic subdialects which differ mostly in word choices.
# Alutiiq (also Pacific Gulf Yupik, Pacific Yupik, Chugach, or Sugpiaq): is spoken from theAlaska Peninsula eastward toPrince William Sound . There are about 3,000Alutiiq s, but only 500 – 1,000 people still speak this language. The Koniag dialect is spoken on the south side of theAlaska Peninsula and onKodiak Island . The Chugach dialect is spoken on theKenai Peninsula and inPrince William Sound .
#Sirenik an extinct language formerly spoken on the Chugot peninsula.Sounds
Consonants
Central Yup’ik Consonants:
c (ts/ch), g (IPA|ɣ) ("velar fricative"), gg (x) ("unvoiced velar fricative"), k, l (IPA|ɮ) ("alveolar lateral fricative"), ll (IPA|ɬ) ("unvoiced alveolar lateral fricative"), m, IPA|ḿ ("voiceless" m), n ("alveolar"), ń ("voiceless" n), ng (ŋ), ńg ("voiceless" ŋ), p, q ("uvular stop"), r (IPA|ʁ) ("uvular fricative"), rr (χ) ("
voiceless uvular fricative "), s (z), ss (s), t ("alveolar"), û (w), v (v/w), vv (f), w (χw), y, ’ ("gemination of preceding consonant")Vowels
Yupik languages have four
vowel s: 'a', 'i', 'u' andschwa . They have from 13 to 27consonant s.Central Yup’ik Vowels:
a, aa, e (ə) ("schoa"), i, ii, u, uu
(In proximity to the
uvular consonant s 'q', 'r' or 'rr', the vowel 'i' is pronounced as a closed /e/, and 'u' as a closed /o/.)Syllable
Grammar
The Yupik languages, like other Eskimo-Aleut languages, represent a particular type of
agglutinative language called apolysynthetic language : it "synthesizes" a root and various grammaticalaffix es to create long words with sentence-like meanings.Writing systems
The Yupik languages were not written until the arrival of Europeans around the beginning of the 19th century. The earliest efforts at writing Yupik were those of missionaries who, with their Yupik-speaking assistants, translated the Bible and other religious texts into Yupik. Such efforts as those of
Saint Innocent of Alaska , Reverend John Hinz (seeJohn Henry Kilbuck ) andUyaquk had the limited goals of transmitting religious beliefs in written form.In addition to the Alaskan
Inupiat , the Alaskan and Siberian Yupik adopted the writing system based on roman orthography that was originally developed by Moravian missionaries inGreenland beginning in the 1760s, which the missionaries later transported toLabrador . The Alaskans were the only Northern indigenous peoples to develophieroglyph ics. [ [http://www.collectionscanada.ca/inuit/054303-e.html Project Naming] , the identification of Inuit portrayed in photographic collections at Library and Archives Canada]After the United States purchased Alaska, Yupik children were taught to write English with Latin letters in the public schools. Some were also taught the Yupik script developed by Rev. Hinz, which used Latin letters and which had become the most widespread method for writing Yupik. In Russia, most Yupik were taught to read and write only Russian, but a few scholars wrote Yupik using Cyrillic letters.
In the 1960s, the
University of Alaska assembled a group of scholars and native Yupik speakers who developed a script to replace the Hinz writing system. One of the goals of this script was that it could be input from an English keyboard, without diacriticals or extra letters. Another requirement was that it accurately represent eachphoneme in the language with a distinct letter. A few features of the script are that it uses 'q' for the back version of 'k', 'r' for the Yupik sound that resembles the French 'r', and consonant + ’ for a geminated (lengthened) consonant. The rhythmic doubling of vowels (except schwa) in every second consecutive open syllable is not indicated in the orthography unless it comes at the end of a word.Footnotes
External links
* [http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/asiatic_eskimos.shtml The Asiatic (Siberian) Eskimos]
* [http://www.asna.ca/alaska Alaskan Orthodox texts (Yup'ik)]
* [http://www.yupik.org/ Ayaprun Elitnaurvik - Yupik Immersion School]
* [http://www.nunivak.org/dictionary/index.html Nunivak Island Cup'ig Language Preliminary Dictionary]Bibliography
* Campbell, Lyle. (1997). "American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America". New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
* Mithun, Marianne. (1999). "The languages of Native North America". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
* de Reuse, Willem J. (1994). "Siberian Yupik Eskimo: The language and its contacts with Chukchi". Studies in indigenous languages of the Americas. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. ISBN 0-87480-397-7.
* [http://www.collectionscanada.ca/inuit/054303-e.html "The Inuktitut Language" in "Project Naming"] , the identification of Inuit portrayed in photographic collections at Library and Archives Canada
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