PREFACE

The Central Alaskan Yup'ik Eskimo language, which is spoken in the Yukon- Kuskokwim Delta and Bristol Bay areas of Southwestern Alaska, is one of four (or possibly five) Yup'ik Eskimo languages. The others are Central Siberian Yup'ik spoken on St. Lawrence Island and the Chukchi Peninsula of Siberia, Naukanski spoken only on the Chukchi Peninsula, and Alutiiq (also called Sugpiaq, Suk, Pacific Gulf Yupik, and, loosely, Aleut) spoken around Prince William Sound, the tip of the Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak Island, and the Alaska Peninsula. These Yupik languages along with the Inupiaq or Inuit language spoken in northern Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland constitute the Eskimo branch of the Eskimo-Aleut family of languages. The position of Sirenikski, spoken only in Siberia and now nearly extinct, as another Yup'ik language or a third branch of Eskimo (along with Yup'ik and Inupiaq/lnuit) has not been definitively determined. The other branch of the Eskimo-Aleut family, Aleut, is spoken on the Aleutian chain and the Pribilof and Commander Islands.
In this book Central Alaskan Yup'ik will be mostly referred to simply as "Yup'ik," the apostrophe distinguishing the name from that of other Yupik Eskimo languages.
It is relevant to observe here that the term "Eskimo" is quite acceptable in Alaska. This is in contrast to the situation in Greenland and especially in Canada, where the term is often considered pejorative and "Inuit" is used instead. In Alaska "Eskimo" is used as a label to include both Yupiks and Inupiaqs; the term 'Inuit" is too limited because it excludes Yupiks. At the present time (1995) there are approximately 20,000 (Central Alaskan) Yup'iks, some 10,500 of whom speak their ancestral language. Children still grow up speaking Yup'ik as their first language in about one-third of the Yup'ik villages, mainly those on the Lower Kuskokwim River, on Nelson Island, and along the coast and in the tundra area between the Kuskokwim River and Nelson Island, In the other Yup'ik villages most children grow up speaking English as their first language and only the older generations still speak Yup'ik.
The first part of this book (Chapters 1 through 12) presents nouns in all their forms, and verb forms enough to make statements, questions and commands, but basically limited to sentences with only one verb. The second part (Chapters 13 through 24) deals with sentences that have two or more verbs. These are sentences with clauses of various sorts, and with the very important-but easily neglected - matter of Yup'ik narrative and discourse. Review sections follow Chapter 12 and Chapter 18.
The predecessor of this book is Yupik Eskimo Grammar (YEG) (Reed et al., 1977). Like that work, the present grammar teaches how the language functions, how it is written and read, and gives a basic vocabulary.' It may be used in classes composed of speakers of Yup'ik, partial speakers, non-speakers or a mixture of these groups. The supplementary sections of each chapter give additional information concerning the vocabulary and grammatical topics discussed in that chapter, including alternative vocabulary from various Yup'ik dialects, other information about dialect differences, a deeper analysis of various constructions, and some historical and comparative material. Depending upon the background and interests of the class, these supplementary sections may be either used or omitted, and the material in this book may be supplemented by oral practice, reading of texts, writing in Yup'ik or other activities not dealt with in the book. Several texts from various sources are included without footnotes at the end of the book.
The present book retains the same terminology as in YEG and in Yupik Eskimo Dictionary (Jacobson, 1984), with certain exceptions which are noted as they occur.
Non-speakers who wish to become able to speak and understand the language with some degree of facility will need many hours of oral practice beyond the time that could ever be provided in a college classroom. However, understanding the grammatical patterns of the language is very important for a person from an English-speaking background who is trying to learn to speak and understand Yupik as an adult, and who thus no longer has the opportunity to learn Yup'ik in the natural and seemingly effortless way that children learn their language from their parents and others.
For the author it was a difficult decision to de-emphasize and defer until the final chapter the treatment of the less frequent dual endings. Doing so seems to be teaching an Eskimo language according to the model of English and other modern European languages, since the dual is as intrinsic a part of Yup'ik as the singular or plural. However, it does simplify paradigms considerably to de-emphasize dual forms, and this may help to alleviate some of the frustration that learners of Yupik have expressed. Furthermore it is also true that most dual constructions are considerably less frequent than singular or plural constructions, so that if there has to be some simplification, this is a logical place for it. In addition, dual endings that are fairly common are treated along with the singular and plural endings. Other dual endings are given, enclosed in square brackets, on the charts of endings in the various chapters even though there are no examples or exercises given for them until the final chapter of the book.
It was also a difficult decision to break up some of the paradigms, giving part of a paradigm in one chapter and another part of it in a later chapter. The justification again was to expose the students to a variety of common constructions as soon as possible. Unfortunately the price is that some of the organizational beauty of each paradigm, which can only be seen as a whole, is lost this way. Complete charts of each paradigm, including all dual forms, will be found in an appendix.
Yup'ik (and Eskimo in general) is very much a gender-neutral language. It has no words comparable to "mankind" or "workman" which assume a certain gender bias. Moreover in Eskimo languages the various morphemes indicating third person singular are not marked for gender. Thus, the word that means 'he is here' also means 'she is here' and 'it is here,' and the word for 'she is asleep 'also means 'he is asleep.' This situation leads to a certain problem in translating such words into English. Even though accurate, it is extremely cumbersome to repeatedly read (and write) 'he, she or it is here', 'he/she is asleep,' '3s is here' or '(s)he is asleep' and even worse to have to say something like 'he or she is putting his or her son to sleep in his or her own bed1' To avoid such difficulities as well as to avoid the objectionable aspects of routinely using the masculine third person sigular pronouns 'he, 'him' and 'his as a convention for 'he or she,' 'him or her,' 'his or her' (as has sometimes been done in Eskimo and other grammars and dictionaries), in this book every even-numbered chapter uses only 'he,' 'him' and 'his,' and every odd-numbered chapter uses only 'she' and 'her' for the third person singular (for humans that is; for non-humans of course the word 'it' is used). Thus in an even-numbered chapter one should understand the English gloss 'he is asleep' to mean 'he or she is asleep,' and in an odd-numbered chapter one should understand the gloss 'she is here' as meaning 'he, she or it is here.' The only exceptions will be cases where biology overrides such a convention, so that, for example, even in an even-numbered chapter one will see 'she is a mother' rather than 'he is a mother'(even though the Yup'ik word itself could also mean 'he...'). On the other hand, no allowance is made for culturally determined gender roles no matter how fixed or traditional such roles are. Thus, for example, in an even-numbered chapter one may find 'he is sewing a parka' (meaning 'he or she is sewing a parka'), and in an odd-numbered chapter one may find 'she is hunting' (meaning 'he or she is hunting').
Differences between the examples, exercises and patterns given herein and the speech of any Yup'ik-speaking reader are due to dialect differences or to the fact that the language is changing rather rapidly now, and the speech of younger speakers is often not the same as that of older speakers. In some cases the Yupik herein represents older patterns of speech and in other cases it represents newer patterns, though the patterns not presented are at least mentioned in footnotes or supplementary sections if not in the text itself. It is no easy task to decide whether to present conservative or innovative patterns. If conservative patterns are presented as the standard in a language textbook, then the book could be criticized for not keeping pace with the language as it is actually spoken today. Conversely if innovative patterns are presented as the standard, then the book could be criticized for endorsing a form of the language which younger speakers themselves might well abandon as they grow older.
Although the Yup'ik has been checked by native speakers, the exercises and example sentences were written by the author, and may still in certain subtle ways give evidence of the fact that they were composed by someone who is not a native speaker of the language. Also, so as not to obscure the point being made, some Yup'ik sentences are written in a style that, while valid, is not the most idiomatic Yup'ik possible.
The background information for this book comes from a number of native Yup'ik speakers. For the most part they are the same group acknowledged in YEG: Paschal Afcan, Martha Teeluk, Sophie Shield, Joseph Coolidge, Marie Meade, also Lucy Coolidge, Balassia W. Nicolai, and above all others, my wife,Anna Jacobson (who is the source of most of the new information on Yup'ik grammar that is in the present book and was not in YEG). Thanks are due especially to those who worked with Yup'ik before I began studying it and who co-authored YEG with me: Irene Reed, Osahito Miyaoka, Michael Krauss and Pascal Afcan, to my colleagues at the Alaska Native Language Center with whom I have discussed Eskimo grammar in general and Yup'ik grammar in particular: Jeff Leer and Lawrence Kaplan, Anthony Woodbury, and Osahito Miyaoka whose articles on Yup'ik have been very informative, and to those whose writings on the grammar of other Eskimo languages preceded the effort that went into YEG and hence into the present book: Samuel Meinschmidt, C. W. Schultz-Lorentzen, and Knut Bergsland for Greenlandic, and Francis Barnum and John Hinz for Yupik. An immense debt is owed to all the students, native Yup'ik speakers and others, who have taken Yup'ik classes from me over the years here at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and who have pointed out to me the errors and inadequacies in previous trial editions of this work, as well as in YEG. Unless noted otherwise, the stories, dialogs and other connected readings (excluding those at the end of the book) were written especially for this book by Anna Jacobson. Since it is likely that many students using this textbook will be native speakers of Yup'ik seeking to learn more about their language, the readings have not been simplified, as is the general practice in language textbooks. However, footnotes to the readings are provided as a way of explaining grammatical constructions and vocabulary not presented before the chapter in which the story appears.
Special thanks go to Jonathan Bobaljik, a graduate student in linguistics at MIT with a special interest in Eskimo, and to Abe Friendly, a native speaker of Yup'ik from Quinhagak, both of whom read through the entire manuscript and pointed out many errors and inadequacies of various sorts to me. Michael Fortescue of the Institute for Eskimology in Copenhagen also read through the manuscript and made a number of valuable comments. Thanks are also due to ANLC editor Tom Alton who prepared the manuscript for publication.
A set of two cassette tapes to go with this book is available from the Alaska Native Language Center. On these tapes all Yup'ik words from the first chapter (on pronunciation and spelling) and from the vocabulary sections of each subsequent chapter are read by a native speaker of Yup'ik.
Let no one think that this book is the final and definitive word on the Central Yup'ik language. Undoubtedly, certain fine points of grammar, usage, and style have been neglected or inadequately addressed. Comments, criticisms, and suggestions are welcome.

Steven A. Jacobson
Alaska Native Language Center and Program
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Cost: $27.50

Information about the resource can be found at:

ANKN Clearinghouse P.O. Box 756730 Fairbanks, AK 99775-6730 Tel: (907) 474-5897 or email: ANKN Clearinghouse

Charles Kashatok Yup'ik Curriculum Specialist P.O.Box 305 Bethel, Alaska 99559 Tel: (907) 543-4853 or email: Charles_Kashatok@fc.lksd-do.org

Native-produced

» Culturally-Based Curriculum Resources