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Concept information

Preferred term

esuCentral Yupik  

Type

  • Language

Definition

  • Central Alaskan Yupik or just Yupik (also called Yupik, Central Yupik, or indigenously Yugtun) is one of the languages of 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, Central Alaskan Yupik is the largest of the languages spoken by Alaska Natives. As of 2010 it was also the second largest language in the United States in terms of numbers of speakers. Central Alaskan Yupik lies geographically and linguistically between Alutiiq and Central Siberian Yupik. The use of the apostrophe in Central Alaskan Yupik, as opposed to Siberian Yupik, denotes a long p. The word Yupik represents not only the language but also the name for the people themselves (yuk, person, and pik, real.) Of a total population of more than 23,000 people, more than 14,000 are speakers of the language. Children still grow up speaking Yupik as their first language in 17 of 68 Yup'ik villages, those mainly located on the lower Kuskokwim River, on Nelson Island, and along the coast between the Kuskokwim River and Nelson Island.

Entry terms

  • Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
  • Yupik, Central

ISO 639-3 code

  • esu

Notation

  • esu

URI

http://lexvo.org/id/iso639-3/esu

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