Article

Name: On the linguistic ideologies of the Naukan Yupik community

Authors: O. M. Pavlova

Insitute of Liguistics RAS, Moscow, Russia

In the section Социолингвистика

Abstract:

This article examines the Naukan Yupik linguistic and ethnic community, most members of which currently reside in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in close interaction with Chukchi and other neighboring communities. A series of field studies conducted between 2022 and 2024 employed participant observation and sociolinguistic retrospective interviews to assess the language community as a whole. The closure of the Yupik village of Naukan in 1958 and the subsequent forced relocation of its inhabitants constituted a major trauma for the Naukan Yupik community and largely predetermined the course of language shift. At present, thirty-eight speakers of the Naukan language live in Russia, most of them of advanced age; only nine are fluent speakers. Fieldwork data made it possible to identify and describe linguistic ideologies held both by members of the Naukan Yupik community and, to a lesser extent, by members of the Chukchi and Chaplino Yupik communities. The study shows that ideologies of linguistic complexity, folklorization, negative predestination, and belonging are salient within the Naukan community. The prevailing attitude frames the Naukan language as more vulnerable than Chukchi. Respondents further express the view that Eskimo languages of North America and Greenland are in a more favorable sociolinguistic situation and possess greater prospects for preservation and development.

Keywords: sociolinguistic interview, language communities, language ideologies, language attitudes, Naukan Yupik, Chaplino Yupik (Central Siberian Yupik), Chukchi language

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