Inupiaq, Iñupiaq, or Inupiatun is a group of dialects of the Inuit language, spoken in northern and northwestern Alaska. The Iñupiaq language is a member of the Eskimo languages group. There are roughly 2100 speakers of Iñupiaq (Krauss, 2007). The speakers are known as Inupiat.

Dialects

There are four main dialect divisions and these can be organized within two larger dialect collections:

• Seward Peninsula Inupiaq, consisting of:
  • Bering Strait: spoken on King Island and the Diomede Islands and in the villages north of Nome, Alaska; subdialects:
    • Diomede
    • Wales
    • King Island
  • Qawiaraq: spoken in Teller, near the original village of Qawiaraq, and in the villages south of Nome as far as Unalakleet; subdialects:
    • Teller
    • Fish River

• Northern Alaskan Iñupiaq: spoken south of Kivalina and around Kotzebue, along the Kobuk River and at the head of the Norton Sound, in Koyuk and Unalakleet; consisting of:
  • Malimiutun, consisting of subdialects:
    • Kobuk
    • Kotzebue
  • North Slope: spoken along the Arctic coast as far south as Kivalina; subdialects:
    • Common North Slope
    • Point Barrow
    • Anaktuvuk Pass (Nunamiut)
    • Uummarmiutun: spoken in the Mackenzie Delta (Aklavik and Inuvik) in the Northwest Territories, Canada

Linguistics

The Inupiaq dialects, like other Eskimo-Aleut languages, represent a particular type of agglutinative language called a polysynthetic language: it "synthesizes" a root and various grammatical affixes to create long words with sentence-like meanings.

Inupiaq has three basic vowels: 'a', 'i', and 'u'. As short vowels, 'a' is pronounced like the 'u' in English 'nut', 'i' is like the 'ee' in the English word 'sleep' and 'u' is like the 'u' in the English word 'rule'. When adjacent to the uvular consonants 'q' and 'ġ', they are lowered, to 'au' in 'caught', 'a' in 'Kate' and 'oa' in 'coat', respectively. There are long forms of the basic values, written 'aa', 'ii', and 'uu'. In Inupiaq, long and short vowels must be distinguished because they make a difference in word meanings. Short vowels may be joined to produce the diphthongs 'ai', 'ia', 'au', 'iu', and 'ui'.

The vowel written 'i' is derived historically from two earlier vowels, one of which causes palatalization of the following consonant, and the other, which does not. Only in pedagogical texts are the two kinds of 'i' written differently.

Inupiaq has 14 consonants. All stops are voiceless, which means that Inupiaq has the sounds of English 'p', 't' and 'k' but not the sounds of English 'b', 'd', 'g'. The consonant written in Alaska as 'q' is like the English 'k' but pronounced further back in the throat. The Inupiaq sound written in Alaska as 'ġ' is pronounced as a buzz in the back of the throat, while 'g' is pronounced like the fricative in Spanish 'agosto'. 'ḷ' is like 'lli' in English 'million', 'ñ' is like 'ni' in 'onion', 'ŋ' is like 'ng' in 'singer', and 'ł' is the voiceless 'll' in Welsh 'Lloyd'.

Writing systems

Inupiaq was first written when explorers first arrived in Alaska and began recording words in the native languages. They wrote by adapting the letters of their own language to writing the sounds they were recording. Spelling was often inconsistent, since the writers invented it as they wrote. Unfamiliar sounds were often confused with other sounds, so that, for example, 'q' was often not distinguished from 'k' and long consonants or vowels were not distinguished from short ones.

Along with the Alaskan and Siberian Yupik, the Inupiat eventually adopted the written system based on Roman orthography (Qaliujaaqpait) that Moravian missionaries first developed in Greenland and Labrador. Independently of missionaries from the south, the Alaskans also developed a system of hieroglyphics, which, however, died with its creators.

In 1946, Roy Ahmaogak, an Inupiaq Presbyterian minister from Barrow, worked with Eugene Nida, a member of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, to develop the current Iñupiaq writing system based on the Roman alphabet. Although some changes have been made since its origin—most notably the change from 'k' to 'q'—the essential system was accurate and is still in use.

Inupiaq alphabet (Atchagat)

A a	Ch ch	G g	Ġ ġ	H h	I i	K k	L l	Ḷ ḷ	Ł ł	Ł̣ ł̣	M m
a	cha	ga	ġa	ha	i	ka	la	ḷa	ła	ł̣a	ma
N n	Ñ ñ	Ŋ ŋ	P p	Q q	R r	S s	Sr sr	T t	U u	V v	Y y
na	ña	ŋa	pa	qa	ra	sa	sra	ta	u	va	ya

Text Sample

This is a sample of the Inupiaq language of the Kobuk river Eskimos (re-transcribed with q for ḳ).

Kayuqtuq ukiaġmi. Sikulġmiu-rami pisruktuaq tamaani. Qaluŋmik niġiruak tikiññiġaa iyyaġrim apiq-srukługu-aasriiñ, "Nakiñ taamna qa-lik piviuŋ?"

"Kanakŋa sikuiḷḷiġumun pamium-nik niksiksuqługu niksiksikkaġa," itnaġniġaa.

And the English translation, from the same source:

Fox and Blackbear were around at fall time as the first ice was forming. Bear came upon Fox eating a fish and asked him, "Where did you get that fish?"

"I hooked the fish with my tail down there where the river has open spots," said Fox.

Footnotes

1. Project Naming, the identification of Inuit portrayed in photographic collections at Library and Archives Canada
2. Kaplan, Lawrence (2000). "L'Inupiaq et les contacts linguistiques en Alaska". In Tersis, Nicole and Michèle Therrien (eds.), Les langues eskaléoutes: Sibérie, Alaska, Canada, Groënland, pages 91-108. Paris: CNRS Éditions. For an overview of Inupiaq phonology, see pages 92-94.
3. Unipchaat 2: Animal stories of the Kobuk River Eskimos 1969.‭ Fairbanks: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Booklet, 26 p.

Further reading

External links

• Ethnologue on North Alaskan Inupiatun
• Ethnologue on Northwest Alaska Inupiatun
• Alaskool Inupiaq Language Resources
• Endangered Alaskan Language Goes Digital from National Public Radio
• Online Iñupiaq morphological analyser
• The dialects of Inupiaq- From Languagegeek.com, includes Northern Alaskan Consonants (US Orthography), Northern Alaskan Vowels, Seward Peninsula Consonants, Seward Peninsula Vowels