Yupik Peoples - Languages

Languages

The five Yupik languages (related to Inuktitut) are still very widely spoken; more than 75% of the Yupik/Yup'ik population are fluent in the language.

The Alaskan and Siberian Yupik, like the Alaskan Inupiat, adopted the system of writing developed by Moravian Church missionaries during the 1760s in Greenland. In addition, the Alaskan Yupik and Inupiat are the only Northern indigenous peoples to have developed their own system of hieroglyphics, a system that died with its inventors. Late nineteenth-century Moravian missionaries to the Yupik in southwestern Alaska used Yupik in church services, and translated scripture into the people's language.

Through a confusion among Russian explorers in the 1800s, they erroneously called the Yupik people bordering the territory of the somewhat unrelated Aleut as also Aleut, or Alutiiq, in Yupik. By tradition, this term has remained in use, as well as Sugpiaq, both of which refer to the Yupik of Southcentral Alaska and Kodiak.

The whole Eskimo–Aleut language family, and also all Alaskan languages are shown below Here is a wikified version of the mentioned tree (restricted to the Eskimo–Aleut family):

• Eskimo–Aleut languages
  • Aleut language
  • Eskimo languages
    • Inuit languages
    • Yupik languages
      • Alaskan:
        • Central Yupik language (Central Alaskan Yup'ik), ISO 639:esu
        • Pacific Gulf Yupik language (Alutiiq), ISO 639:ems
      • Siberian:
        • Central Siberian Yupik language (Yuit), ISO 639:ess
        • Naukan Yupik language, ISO 639:ynk
        • Sirenik Yupik language, ISO 639:ysr.