Yupik

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Yupik mother with child,
photography by Edward S. Curtis
Yupik woman at the Fairbanks Fur Market. Parka made of arctic ground squirrel with fox fur , badger fur and skunks fur (between 1980 and 1983)

Yupik refers to several groups of Eskimo and their languages ​​(English also Western Eskimo ), which are spoken by around 16,000 people on the Russian Chukchi Peninsula , southwest Alaska and some islands.

The Central Alaskan Yup'ik live in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta , on the Kuskokwim River and on the coast of Bristol Bay , the Pacific Yupik ( Alutiiq or Sugpiaq ) on the Alaska Peninsula and on the coast and on islands in south-central Alaska . The Siberian Yupik and Naukan live in eastern Russia and on the Saint Lawrence Island, which belongs to Alaska .

As a rule, Yupik is spoken in small settlements or among the nomads , while Russian is the lingua franca in the large settlements. In Siberia, the cultivation of the language in certain primary schools is remarkable. On the American side, the English language dominates the settlements. In many communities, half of the population is white and a quarter each is Indians and Eskimos.

Yupik was first recorded in writing during the missionary work of these groups, in Siberia by Innokenti Weniaminow , in Alaska by Reverend John Henry Kilbuck in the course of the 19th century. Around 1900, an illiterate the Yupik developed with a certain access to the letters of the English language, the occasional Yupik font called Alaska font , a now uncommon syllabary.

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literature

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Commons : Yupik  - collection of images, videos and audio files