Yupik languages

The Yupik languages are a group of languages spoken by the Yupik peoples in western and south-central Alaska and Chukotka. These languages belong to a larger family called Eskaleut languages.

Even though the Yupik languages are related, people who speak one might not understand another very well. This is because the languages changed over time in different ways.

One Yupik language, called Sirenik, stopped being used in 1997 and is no longer spoken by anyone. The Yupik languages separated from other language families, like Aleut and Inuit languages, a long time ago. This happened as people moved to different areas. Today, these languages help keep the culture and history of the Yupik peoples alive.

List of languages

The Yupik languages are a group of related languages spoken by the Yupik peoples. There are several Yupik languages, and they can be hard to understand between each other.

Some of the Yupik languages include:

• Naukan Yupik: spoken by people in Lavrentiya, Lorino, and Uelen.
• Central Siberian Yupik: spoken in the Russian Far East and on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska.
• Central Alaskan Yup'ik: spoken in parts of Alaska, including areas around Norton Sound, the Alaska Peninsula, and islands like Nunivak.
• Alutiiq: spoken from the Alaska Peninsula to Prince William Sound.
• Sirenik: this language is no longer spoken. It was once used on the Chukchi Peninsula.

Phonology

Further information: Central Alaskan Yup'ik language § Phonology

Consonants

Central Yup'ik Consonants:

c [ts][tʃ], g [ɣ], gg [x], k, l [l], ll [ɬ], m, ḿ (voiceless m), n (alveolar), ń (voiceless n), ng [ŋ], ńg (voiceless ŋ), p, q [q], r [ʁ], rr [χ], s [z], ss [s], t (alveolar), û [w], v [v][w], vv [f], w [χʷ], y [j], (gemination of preceding consonant)

Vowels

Yupik languages have four vowels: 'a', 'i', 'u' and schwa (ə). They have from 13 to 27 consonants.

Central Yup'ik Vowels:

a, aa, e (ə) (schwa), i, ii, u, uu

(In proximity to the uvular consonants 'q', 'r' or 'rr', the vowel /i/ is pronounced [e], and /u/ is pronounced [o].)

Prosody

Syllable

Yup'ik verbs always begin with a root morpheme like "kaig" - to be hungry, and always end with a pronoun.

Yupik is a polysynthetic language that can have analytic alternatives; speakers can express similar ideas in a series of words with a number of bound morphemes.

Stress

The stress pattern of Central Siberian and Central Alaskan is generally iambic where stress occurs on the second syllable of each two-syllable metrical foot. This can be seen in words consisting of light (L) syllables.

Stressed syllables undergo phonetic lengthening in Yupik.

Morphology

The Yupik languages are a special type of language called an affixally polysynthetic language.

In Yupik, words are made by adding many endings, called suffixes, to a single starting part, called a root. This creates long words that can mean whole sentences. The order of these suffixes can change to show different ideas.

Writing systems

The Yupik languages did not have a way to write them down until Europeans arrived in the early 1800s. Missionaries and Yupik people created the first written Yupik by translating religious books. Important people included Saint Innocent of Alaska, Reverend John Hinz (see John Henry Kilbuck), and Uyaquq.

Later, Yupik people in Alaska and Siberia began using a Latin alphabet. This was created by Moravian missionaries in Greenland and brought to Labrador. After the United States purchased Alaska, Yupik children learned to write English in school. Some also learned a Yupik writing system made by Rev. Hinz using Latin letters.

In the 1960s, scholars and Yupik speakers at the University of Alaska created a new writing system. This system could be typed on an English keyboard. It used special letters to show each sound in the Yupik language. For example, it uses 'q' for a special sound and marks long consonants with a plus sign after them.