Central Alaskan Yup'ik-English manuscript dictionary.

Alaska: , early 1900s. Alaskan lexicography An extensive manuscript dictionary of Central Alaskan Yup'ik, one of the languages in the Yupik family spoken along the coast of southwestern Alaska and its major river systems, including the Kuskokwim. It proves a valuable source of a language that has been under threat since the Alaska Purchase. The entries are mainly weekdays, numerals, animals, family members, and tools. Some have their practical use explained, like "Kah-nuk-um-yuk", a "respirator (used as a plug in the mouth while taking a bath to prevent the inhaling of smoke)". Simple phrases are also included, such as "Umchi-kee-kee" ("Hurry up"), "Ketozit-yucht-toon" ("what is your native name"), "Oh-mee-nak-wa" ("Oh my!"), "Nut-tmon-iyaka-dot-cheet" ("what are you going to do?"). Two sheets are loosely inserted, comprising 13 names and 6 placenames with their Central Alaskan Yup'ik equivalents. Listed is Jim One-Eye as "Nat-Cillingok" and Church Slough, a branch of the Kuskokwim River, is "Ah-guy-u-lu-yak-al-lak". There is little to indicate a date, however, under the word "Kah-ko-tuk", the compiler refers to the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, published in 1899. Additionally, the loose sheets are watermarked "Eastern Writing", a brand issued by the American Colortype Company of Chicago, in business during the first decades of the 20th century. This dictionary was likely compiled by a Moravian missionary "recognizing the importance of communicating with the people in their own Yup'ik language" (Henkelman, p. 75). It might also be by the American ethnologist Edward William Nelson (1855-1934), who published the paper "The Eskimo About Bering Strait" in the abovementioned Eighteenth Annual Report. Nelson's seminal work remains the richest source of information on the 19th-century Yupik. The first written record of Central Alaskan Yup'ik was made during Captain Cook's third expedition (1776-80). Following the explorers missionaries recorded the indigenous languages, though mainly for disseminating religious literature. The Moravian Protestants were particularly avid translators, creating orthographies using the Roman alphabet. Phonemic orthographies were not developed until the mid-twentieth century. Central Alaskan Yup'ik is a polysynthetic language, using suffixation as the primary means for word formation. It is part of the Eskaleut language family, spoken across the North American continent and northeastern Asia. Eskaleut is divided into two branches, Aleut and Eskimoan, with the latter subdivided into Yupik and Inuit. Yupik is then comprised of four distinct languages - Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Alutiiq, Siberian Yupik, and Sirenikski (now extinct). Indigenous Alaskan languages have been under threat since the Alaska Purchase in 1867 from American assimilation policies. Commercial developments from the 1890s brought large influxes of people and destructive effects of epidemics. In the same period, church missions opened schools for indigenous Alaskans, opposing native languages in education. Today the languages are "suffering from an accelerated decline in vitality under ever-increasing pressure from English, especially since the advent of bilingual education in 1970 and the introduction of television to rural Alaska in the 1980s" (Miyaoka, p. 5). Octavo (218 x 135 mm). Contemporary greyish-brown cloth, 24 ff. lined paper with manuscript annotations, largely recto only, alphabetized tab index; 2 ff. ruled sheets with manuscript annotations loosely inserted. Spine sunned, a little rubbed, minor toning. A very good copy. Dirmid R. F. Collis (ed.), Arctic Languages: An Awakening, 1990; James Henkelman, "The Development of the Alaska Moravian Church 1885-1985", Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society, vol. 24, 1986, pp. 71-82; Osahito Miyaoka, A Grammar of Central Alaskan Yu'pik, 2012.