Yugtun script facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Yugtun |
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| Type | Syllabary |
| Spoken languages | Central Alaskan Yup'ik |
| Created by | Uyaquq |
| Time period | Invented 1900 |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | |
The Yugtun or Alaska script is a syllabary invented around the year 1900 by Uyaquq to write the Central Alaskan Yup'ik language. Uyaquq, who was monolingual in Yup'ik but had a son who was literate in English, initially used Indigenous pictograms as a form of proto-writing that served as a mnemonic in preaching the Bible. However, when he realized that this did not allow him to reproduce the exact words of a passage the way the Latin alphabet did for English-speaking missionaries, he and his assistants developed it until it became a full syllabary. Although Uyaquq never learned English or the Latin alphabet, he was influenced by both. The syllable kut, for example, resembles the cursive form of the English word good.
The Yup'ik language is now generally written in the Latin alphabet.
