Iñupiaq (Inupiatun)

Iñupiaq is an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken in northern and northwestern Alaska in the USA. In 2010 there were about 2,000 speakers of Iñupiaq, who are known as Inupiat. The language is also known as Inupiatun, Inupiaq, Inyupiaq, Inyupiat, Inyupeat, Inyupik or Inupik.

There are two main clusters of Iñupiaq dialects: Seward Peninsula Inupiatun, and Northern Alaskan Iñupiatun. The former includes Bering Strait, and Qawiaraq dialects, and the latter includes Malimiutun, and North Slope dialects.

There are also some speakers of Iñupiaq in Inuvik and Aklavik in the Northwest Territories of Canada. They speak a Northern Alaskan dialect of Iñupiaq known as Canadian Iñupiaq or Uummarmiutun. Their ancesters migrated to Canada from Alaska in the 1910s.

Iñupiaq was first written by explorers in Alaska who devised various ways to write the language, none of which were very consistent. A spelling system developed by Moravian missionaries in Greenland and Labrador was eventually adopted for Iñupiaq.

The current system was developed by Roy Ahmaogak, an Iñupiaq Presbyterian minister from Barrow, and Eugene Nida, a member of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, in 1946.

A numeral system for Iñupiaq, called Kaktovik (Iñupiaq) numerals, was created in the 1990s by students at a school in Kaktovik, Alaska. [More details]

Iñupiaq alphabets and pronunciation

Northern Alaskan Iñupiatun

Northern Alaskan Iñupiatun

Seward Peninsula Inupiatun

Seward Peninsula Inupiatun

Canadian Iñupiaq alphabet (Uummarmiutun)

Canadian Iñupiaq alphabet (Uummarmiutun)

Download alphabet charts for Iñupiaq (Excel)

Sample text in Northern Alaskan Iñupiatun

Aaŋŋaayiña aniñiqsuq Qikiqtami. Aasii iñuguġuni. Tikiġaġmi Kivaliñiġmiḷu. Tuvaaqatiniguni Aivayuamik. Qulit atautchimik qitunġivḷutik. Itchaksrat iñuuvlutiŋ. Iḷaŋat Qitunġaisa taamna Qiñuġana.

Translation

Aaŋŋaayiña was born in Shishmaref. He grew up in Point Hope and Kivalina. He marries Aivayuaq. They had eleven children. Six of them are alive. One of the children is Qiñuġana.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inupiaq_language

Sample videos in and about Iñupiaq

Information about Iñupiaq | Kaktovik (Iñupiaq) Numerals | Phrases | Numbers

Links

Information about the Iñupiaq language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inupiaq_language
http://www.languagegeek.com/inu/inupiaq.html
http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/languages/i/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uummarmiutun

Online Iñupiaq dictionary
http://www.alaskool.org/Language/dictionaries/inupiaq/dictionary.htm

Eskimo-Aleut languages

Aleut, Alutiiq, Greenlandic, Inuktitut, Inuktun, Iñupiaq, Sirenik, Yup'ik (Central Alaskan), Yupik (Central Siberian)

Languages written with the Latin alphabet

Page last modified: 19.12.23

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