Central Alaskan Yupʼik
Central Alaskan Yupʼik (also rendered Yupik,[4] Central Yupik,[5][6] or indigenously Yugtun) is one of the languages of the Yupik family, in turn a member of the Eskimo–Aleut language group, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska. Both in ethnic population and in number of speakers, the Central Alaskan Yupik people form the largest group among Alaska Natives. As of 2010 Yupʼik was, after Navajo, the second most spoken aboriginal language in the United States.[7] Yupʼik should not be confused with the related language Central Siberian Yupik spoken in Chukotka and St. Lawrence Island, nor Naukan Yupik likewise spoken in Chukotka.
"Yup'ik language" redirects here. Not to be confused with the Yupik languages.Central Alaskan Yupik
Yupʼik, like all Eskimo languages, is polysynthetic and uses suffixation as primary means for word formation. There are a great number of derivational suffixes (termed postbases) that are used productively to form these polysynthetic words. Yupʼik has predominantly ergative alignment: case marking follows the ergative pattern for the most part, but verb agreement can follow an ergative or an accusative pattern, depending on grammatical mood.[8] The language grammatically distinguishes three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. There is no marking of grammatical gender in the language, nor are there articles.
Language name[edit]
The Yup'ik language goes by various names. Since it is a geographically central member of the Yupik languages and is spoken in Alaska, the language is often referred to as Central Alaskan Yupik (for example, in Miyaoka's 2012 grammar of the language). The term Yup'ik [jupːik] is a common endonym, and is derived from /juɣ-piɣ/ "person-genuine".[8] The Alaska Native Language Center and Jacobson's (1995) learner's grammar use Central (Alaskan) Yup'ik, which can be seen as a hybrid of the former two terms; there is, however, potential for confusion here: Central (Alaskan) Yup'ik may refer to either the language as a whole, or the geographically central dialect of the language, more commonly called General Central Yup'ik.
Other endonyms are used regionally: Cup'ig in the Nunivak dialect, Cup'ik in Chevak (these terms are cognate with Yup'ik, but represent the pronunciation of the word in the respective dialect), and Yugtun in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region.
Geographic distribution and use[edit]
Yupʼik is spoken primarily in southwestern Alaska, from Norton Sound in the north to the Alaska Peninsula in the south, and from Lake Iliamna in the east to Nunivak Island in the west. Yup'ik lies geographically central relative to the other members of the Yupik language family: Alutiiq ~ Sugpiaq is spoken to south and east, and Central Siberian Yupik is spoken to the west on St. Lawrence Island (often called St. Lawrence Island Yupik in the Alaskan context) and on the Chukotka peninsula, where Naukan Yupik is also spoken. Yup'ik is bordered to the north by the more distantly related Iñupiaq language; the difference between Yupʼik and Iñupiaq is comparable to that of the difference between Spanish and French.[9]
Of a total population of more than 23,000 people, more than 14,000 are speakers of the language.[10] Children still grow up speaking Yupʼik as their first language in 17 of 68 Yupʼik villages, those mainly located on the lower Kuskokwim River, on Nelson Island, and along the coast between the Kuskokwim River and Nelson Island. The variety of Yup'ik spoken by the younger generations is being influenced strongly by English: it is less synthetic, has a reduced inventory of spatial demonstratives, and is lexically Anglicized.[8]
Writing and literature[edit]
A syllabary known as the Yugtun script was invented for the language by Uyaquq, a native speaker, in about 1900, although the language is now mostly written using the Latin script.[16] Early linguistic work in Central Yupʼik was done primarily by Russian Orthodox, then Jesuit and Moravian Church missionaries, leading to a modest tradition of literacy used in letter writing. In the 1960s, Irene Reed and others at the Alaska Native Language Center developed a modern writing system for the language. Their work led to the establishment of the state's first bilingual school programs in four Yupʼik villages in the early 1970s. Since then a wide variety of bilingual materials has been published, including Steven Jacobson's comprehensive dictionary of the language, his complete practical classroom grammar, and story collections and narratives by many others including a full novel by Anna Jacobson.
Phonology[edit]
Vowels[edit]
Yup'ik contrasts four vowel qualities: /a i u ə/. The reduced vowel /ə/ always manifests phonetically short in duration, but the other three vowel qualities may occur phonetically short or long: [a aː i iː u uː]. Phonetically long vowels come about when a full vowel (/a i u/) is lengthened by stress (see below), or when two single vowels are brought together across a morpheme boundary. The effect is that while phonetic vowel length may yield a surface contrast between words, phonetic length is predictable and thus not phonemically contrastive.[8]
Yupʼik language education[edit]
Small changes have been made towards teaching Yupʼik to the native Alaskan Yupʼiks. In 1972, the Alaska State Legislature passed legislation mandating that if "a [school is attended] by at least 15 pupils whose primary language is other than English, [then the school] shall have at least one teacher who is fluent in the native language".[28] Then, during the mid-1970s, educational programs emerged in order to revive and sustain the Yupʼik language: MacLean notes that "In 1975, an Alaska State statute was enacted directing all school boards to '...provide a bilingual-bicultural education program for each school...which is attended by at least 8 pupils of limited English-speaking ability and whose primary language is other than English'".[29] However, "the statute addressed all languages other than English, and thus expanded bilingualism equally to immigrant languages," meaning that although the statute welcomed non-English languages into schools, its primary "aim" was to "promote English proficiency", not to keep Yupʼik alive.[29]
Later, during the 1987-8 school year, three organizations, including members of the Alaska Native community, "initiated a process to establish an Alaska Native Language Policy for schools in Alaska," which "states that schools have a responsibility to teach and use as the medium of instruction the Alaska Native language of the local community to the extent desired by the parents of that community".[29] This proposal for the Alaska Native Language Policy comes three years after Steven A. Jacobson's "Central Yupʼik and the Schools: A Handbook for Teachers", a guide for teachers which exemplifies differences and similarities between English and Yupʼik so that Yupʼik or English-speaking teachers might successfully engage English-speaking Eskimo Yupʼik students in a "bilingual-bicultural education" that teaches their native language.[30]
In 2018, Anchorage's first Yup'ik immersion program was launched at College Gate Elementary.[31] Yup'ik language courses are offered at the University of Alaska Anchorage and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The latter also offers Bachelor's degrees in Yupʼik Language and Culture, as well as associate degrees in Native Language Education with a concentration in Yupʼik, and certificates in Yupʼik Language Proficiency.[32][33]