Iñupiaq language
Iñupiaq or Inupiaq, also known as Iñupiat, Inupiat, Iñupiatun or Alaskan Inuit, is an Inuit language, or perhaps group of languages, spoken by the Iñupiat people in northern and northwestern Alaska, as well as a small adjacent part of the Northwest Territories of Canada. The Iñupiat language is a member of the Inuit–Yupik–Unangan language family, and is closely related and, to varying degrees, mutually intelligible with other Inuit languages of Canada and Greenland. There are roughly 2,000 speakers. Iñupiaq is considered to be a threatened language, with most speakers at or above the age of 40. Iñupiaq is an official language of the State of Alaska, along with several other indigenous languages.
The major varieties of the Iñupiaq language are the North Slope Iñupiaq and Seward Peninsula Iñupiaq dialects.
The Iñupiaq language has been in decline since contact with English in the late 19th century. American territorial acquisition and the legacy of boarding schools have created a situation today where a small minority of Iñupiat speak the Iñupiaq language. There is, however, revitalization work underway today in several communities.
History
The Iñupiaq language is an Inuit language, the ancestors of which may have been spoken in the northern regions of Alaska for as long as 5,000 years. Between 1,000 and 800 years ago, Inuit migrated east from Alaska to Canada and Greenland, eventually occupying the entire Arctic coast and much of the surrounding inland areas. The Iñupiaq dialects are the most conservative forms of the Inuit language, with less linguistic change than the other Inuit languages.In the mid to late 19th century, Russian, British, and American colonists made contact with Iñupiat people. In 1885, the American territorial government appointed Rev. Sheldon Jackson as General Agent of Education. Under his administration, Iñupiat people were educated in English-only environments, forbidding the use of Iñupiaq and other indigenous languages of Alaska. After decades of English-only education, with strict punishment if heard speaking Iñupiaq, after the 1970s, most Iñupiat did not pass the Iñupiaq language on to their children, for fear of them being punished for speaking their language.
In 1972, the Alaska Legislature passed legislation mandating that if "a by at least 15 pupils whose primary language is other than English, shall have at least one teacher who is fluent in the native language".
Today, the University of Alaska Fairbanks offers bachelor's degrees in Iñupiaq language and culture, while a preschool/kindergarten-level Iñupiaq immersion school named Nikaitchuat Iḷisaġviat teaches grades PreK–1st grade in Kotzebue.
In 2014, Iñupiaq became an official language of the State of Alaska, alongside English and nineteen other indigenous languages. In the same year, Iñupiat linguist and educator Edna Ahgeak MacLean published an Iñupiaq–English grammar and dictionary with over 19,000 entries. An online version was later released by her.
In 2018, Facebook added Iñupiaq as a language option on their website. In 2022, an Iñupiaq version of Wordle was created.
Dialects
There are four main dialect divisions and these can be organized within two larger dialect collections:- Iñupiaq
- *Seward Peninsula Iñupiaq is spoken on the Seward Peninsula. It has a possible Yupik substrate and is divergent from other Inuit languages.
- **Qawiaraq
- **Bering Strait
- *Northern Alaskan Iñupiaq is spoken from the Northwest Arctic and North Slope regions of Alaska to the Mackenzie Delta in Northwest Territories, Canada.
- **Malimiut
- **North Slope Iñupiaq
| Dialect collection | Dialect | Subdialect | Tribal nation | Populated areas |
| Seward Peninsula Iñupiaq | Bering Strait | Diomede | Iŋalit | Little Diomede Island, Big Diomede Island until the late 1940s |
| Seward Peninsula Iñupiaq | Bering Strait | Wales | Kiŋikmiut, Tapqaġmiut | Wales, Shishmaref, Brevig Mission |
| Seward Peninsula Iñupiaq | Bering Strait | King Island | Ugiuvaŋmiut | King Island until the early 1960s, Nome |
| Seward Peninsula Iñupiaq | Qawiaraq | Teller | Siñiġaġmiut, Qawiaraġmiut | Teller, Shaktoolik |
| Seward Peninsula Iñupiaq | Qawiaraq | Fish River | Iġałuiŋmiut | White Mountain, Golovin |
| Northern Alaskan Iñupiaq | Malimiutun | Kobuk | Kuuŋmiut, Kiitaaŋmiut , Siilim Kaŋianiġmiut, Nuurviŋmiut, Kuuvaum Kaŋiaġmiut, Akuniġmiut, Nuataaġmiut, Napaaqtuġmiut, Kivalliñiġmiut | Kobuk River Valley, Selawik |
| Northern Alaskan Iñupiaq | Malimiutun | Coastal | Pittaġmiut, Kaŋiġmiut, Qikiqtaġruŋmiut | Kotzebue, Noatak |
| Northern Alaskan Iñupiaq | North Slope / Siḷaliñiġmiutun | Common North Slope | Utuqqaġmiut, Siliñaġmiut , Kakligmiut , Kuulugruaġmiut, Ikpikpagmiut, Kuukpigmiut | |
| Northern Alaskan Iñupiaq | North Slope / Siḷaliñiġmiutun | Point Hope | Tikiġaġmiut | Point Hope |
| Northern Alaskan Iñupiaq | North Slope / Siḷaliñiġmiutun | Point Barrow | Nuvuŋmiut | |
| Northern Alaskan Iñupiaq | North Slope / Siḷaliñiġmiutun | Anaktuvuk Pass | Nunamiut | Anaktuvuk Pass |
| Northern Alaskan Iñupiaq | North Slope / Siḷaliñiġmiutun | Uummarmiutun | Uummarmiut | Aklavik, Inuvik |
Extra geographical information:
Bering Strait dialect:
The Native population of the Big Diomede Island was moved to the Siberian mainland after World War II. The following generation of the population spoke Central Siberian Yupik or Russian. The entire population of King Island moved to Nome in the early 1960s. The Bering Strait dialect might also be spoken in Teller on the Seward Peninsula.
Qawiaraq dialect:
A dialect of Qawiaraq is spoken in Nome. A dialect of Qawariaq may also be spoken in Koyuk, Mary's Igloo, Council, and Elim. The Teller sub-dialect may be spoken in Unalakleet.
Malimiutun dialect:
Both sub-dialects can be found in Buckland, Koyuk, Shaktoolik, and Unalakleet. A dialect of Malimiutun may be spoken in Deering, Kiana, Noorvik, Shungnak, and Ambler. The Malimiutun sub-dialects have also been classified as "Southern Malimiut" and "Northern Malimiut" found in "other villages".
North Slope dialect:
Common North Slope is "a mix of the various speech forms formerly used in the area". The Point Barrow dialect was "spoken only by a few elders" in 2010. A dialect of North Slope is also spoken in Kivalina, Point Lay, Wainwright, Atqasuk, Utqiaġvik, Nuiqsut, and Barter Island.
Phonology
Iñupiaq dialects differ widely between consonants used. However, consonant clusters of more than two consonants in a row do not occur. A word may not begin nor end with a consonant cluster.All Iñupiaq dialects have three basic vowel qualities: /a i u/. There is currently no instrumental work to determine what allophones may be linked to these vowels. All three vowels can be long or short, giving rise to a system of six phonemic vowels /a aː i iː u uː/. Long vowels are represented by double letters in the orthography: ⟨aa⟩, ⟨ii⟩, ⟨uu⟩. The following diphthongs occur: /ai ia au ua iu ui/. No more than two vowels occur in a sequence in Iñupiaq.
The Bering strait dialect has a fourth vowel /e/, which preserves the fourth proto-Eskimo vowel reconstructed as */ə/. In the other dialects, proto-Eskimo */e/ has merged with the closed front vowel /i/. The merged /i/ is referred to as the "strong /i/", which causes palatalization when preceding consonant clusters in the North Slope dialect. The other /i/ is referred to as "the weak /i/". Weak and strong /i/s are not differentiated in orthography, making it impossible to tell which ⟨i⟩ represents palatalization "short of looking at other processes which depend on the distinction between two i's or else examining data from other Eskimo languages". However, it can be assumed that, within a word, if a palatal consonant is preceded by an ⟨i⟩, it is strong. If an alveolar consonant is preceded by an ⟨i⟩, it is weak.
Words may begin with a stop, the fricative /s/, nasals /m n/, with a vowel, or the semivowel /j/. Loanwords, proper names, and exclamations may begin with any segment in both the Seward Peninsula dialects and the North Slope dialects. In the Uummarmiutun dialect words can also begin with /h/. For example, the word for "ear" in North Slope and Little Diomede Island dialects is siun whereas in Uummarmiutun it is hiun.
A word may end in any nasal sound, in the stops /t k q/ or in a vowel. In the North Slope dialect if a word ends with an m, and the next word begins with a stop, the m is pronounced /p/, as in aġnam tupiŋa, pronounced /aʁnap tupiŋa/
Very little information of the prosody of Iñupiaq has been collected. However, "fundamental frequency, intensity, loudness, and spectral tilt may be important" in Malimiutun. Likewise, "duration is not likely to be important in Malimiut Iñupiaq stress/syllable prominence".
North Slope Iñupiaq
For North Slope IñupiaqThe voiceless stops /p/ /t/ /k/ and /q/ are not aspirated. This may or may not be true for other dialects as well.
/c/ is derived from a palatalized and unreleased /t/.
Assimilation
Source:Two consonants cannot appear together unless they share the manner of articulation. The only exception to this rule is having a voiced fricative consonant appear with a nasal consonant. Since all stops in North Slope are voiceless, a lot of needed assimilation arises from having to assimilate a voiceless stop to a voiced consonant.
This process is realized by assimilating the first consonant in the cluster to a consonant that: 1) has the same has the same manner of articulation as the second consonant that it is assimilating to. If the second consonant is a lateral or approximant, the first consonant will assimilate to a lateral or approximant if possible. If not the first consonant will assimilate to a fricative. Therefore:
| IPA | Example |
| /kn/ → /ɣn/ or → /ŋn/ | |
| /qn/ → /ʁn/ or → /ɴ/ * | |
| /tn/ → /nn/ | |
| /tm/ → /nm/ | |
| /tɬ/ → /ɬɬ/ |
The stops /t̚ʲ/ and /t/ do not have a corresponding voiced fricative, therefore they will assimilate to the closest possible area of articulation. In this case, the /t̚ʲ/ will assimilate to the voiced approximant /j/. The /t/ will assimilate into a. Therefore:
| IPA | Example |
| /t̚ʲɣ/ → /jɣ/ | |
| /tv/ → /ʐv/ |
In the case of the second consonant being a lateral, the lateral will again be treated as a fricative. Therefore:
| IPA | Example |
| /ml/ → /ml/ or → /vl/ | |
| /nl/ → /nl/ or → /ll/ |
Since voiced fricatives can appear with nasal consonants, both consonant clusters are possible.
The sounds and are not represented in the orthography. Therefore, like the /ɴn/ example shown above, assimilation still occurs while the spelling remains the same. Therefore:
| IPA | Example |
| /qɬ/ → | |
| /kʂ/ → /xʂ/ | |
| /vs/ → /fs/ |
These general features of assimilation are not shared with Uummarmiut, Malimiutun, or the Seward Peninsula dialects. Malimiutun and the Seward Peninsula dialects "preserve voiceless stops when they are etymological ". Compare:
| North Slope | Malimiutun | Seward Peninsula dialects | Uummarmiut | English |
| nivliqsuq | nipliqsuq | nipłatuq, nipłiqtuq | nivliraqtuq | makes a sound |
| igniq | ikniq | ikniq | ikniq | fire |
| annuġaak | atnuġaak | atnuġaak | atar̂aaq | garment |