Central Siberian Yupik,[4][5] (also known as Siberian Yupik, Bering Strait Yupik[citation needed], Yuit[citation needed], Yoit[citation needed], "St. Lawrence Island Yupik",[6][7] and in Russia "Chaplinski Yupik" or Yuk[citation needed]) is an endangered Yupik language spoken by the Indigenous Siberian Yupik people along the coast of Chukotka in the Russian Far East and in the villages of Savoonga and Gambell on St. Lawrence Island. The language is part of the Eskimo-Aleut language family.
In the United States, the Alaska Native Language Center identified about 400-750 Yupigestun speakers, considering “dormant speakers” who understand but cannot converse.[1] In Russia in 2021, 172 people indicated that they speak the language, while only 92 of them use it in everyday life.[2] Thus, the total number of speakers is no more than 550-900 people.
Siberian Yupik has two dialects: Chaplino (Chaplinski) Yupik (Uŋazigmit) is spoken on the shores of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far North, and St. Lawrence Island Yupik (Sivuqaghmiistun) is spoken on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska.
Chaplino, or Uŋazigmit, is the largest Yupik language of Siberia (the second one is Naukan Yupik), and is named after the settlement of Уӈазиӄ (Ungaziq; Chaplino or Old Chaplino in Russian). The word Ungazighmii / Уңазиӷмӣ[8][9] [uŋaʑiʁmiː] (plural Ungazighmiit / Уңазиӷмӣт [uŋaʑiʁmiːt][10][11]) means "Ungaziq inhabitant(s)". People speaking this language live in several settlements in the southeastern Chukchi Peninsula[12] (including Novoye Chaplino, Provideniya, and Sireniki), Uelkal, Wrangel Island,[11] and Anadyr.[13] The majority of Chaplino Yupik speakers live in the villages of Novoye Chaplino and Sireniki. In another terminology, these people speak Chaplino, and Ungazighmiit people speak one of its dialects, along with other dialects spoken by Avatmit, Imtugmit, Kigwagmit, which can be divided further into even smaller dialects.[12]
The second dialect, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, is believed to be an offspring of Chaplino with only minor phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactical and lexical differences, and the two dialects are virtually identical.[14]
Unlike the Central Alaskan Yupik languages, Siberian Yupik has a series of retroflex fricatives, more similar to the Alaskan Inuit dialects.
Morphosyntax is the study of grammatical categories or linguistic units that have both morphological and syntactic properties. Central Siberian Yupik’s structure most resembles this category. In addition, CSY can be described as using both internal and external syntax. Internal syntax is used here to describe the way that postbases are added to a base or added to one another, contrasted with external syntax, which refers to the order of independent words.[15]
Central Siberian Yupik is a polysynthetic language, meaning it is made up of long, structured words containing many separate meaningful parts (morphemes). In fact, a single word can be an entire sentence. CSY is also an ergative-absolutive language, in contrast to the nominative-accusative structure of English and many Indo-European languages.
Most Siberian Yupik words consist of a "base" or "stem", followed by zero or more "postbases", followed by one "ending", followed by zero or more "enclitics":[16]
angyagh-
boat
stem
-ghllag-
big
postbase
-nge-
acquire
postbase
-yug-
want
postbase
-tuq
3SG-PRES
ending
-llu
also
enclitic
"Also, he/she wants to acquire a big boat."
Generally, the “base” or “stem” contains the root meaning of the word , while the “postbases,” which are suffixing morphemes, provide additional components of the sentence (see example above). As shown, postbases include items with adjectival and verbal qualities, among other elements. The “ending” (Woodbury’s term) is an inflectional suffix to the right of the postbase that contains grammatical information such as number, person, case, or mood.[17] Enclitics are bound suffixes that follow the inflectional ending of a word. An attached enclitic affects the meaning of the entire sentence, not just the element to which it is attached. The exception is the enclitic ‘llu,’ shown above, which has a basic meaning of ‘and.’[18]
The base forms the lexical core of the word and belongs to one of three main classes: noun bases, verb bases and particle bases.[19]
Noun endings indicate number (singular, dual, or plural), case, and whether or not the noun is possessed. If the noun is possessed, the ending indicates the number and person of the possessor. Siberian Yupik has seven noun cases:
As in other ergative-absolutive languages, absolutive case is used to mark nouns that are generally the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs.
Ergative case identifies nouns as a subject of a transitive verb and acts as the genitive form in ergative-absolutive languages.
The ablative case is used to indicate the agent in passive sentences, or the instrument, manner, or place of the action described by the verb.