Chevak Cupüik or just Cupüik (and sometimes Cugtun) is a subdialect of the Hooper BayâÂÂChevak dialect of Yupüik spoken in southwestern Alaska in the Chevak (Cupüik, Cevüaq) by Chevak Cupüik Eskimos (own name Cupüit or Cevüallrarmuit). Speakers of the Chevak subdialect refer to themselves as Cupüik (as opposed to Yupüik), while speakers of the Hooper Bay subdialect refer to themselves as Yupüik (not Cupüik), as in the Yukon-Kuskokwim dialect.
The Central Alaskan Yupik who live in the village of Chevak call themselves Cupüik (plural Cupüit), whereas those who live on Nunivak Island (Nuniwar in Nunivak Cupüig, Nunivaaq in Central Yupüik) call themselves Cupüig (plural Cupüit), the spelling differences serving as a self-designated cultural identifier between the two groups. In both dialects, the Yupüik consonant c is pronounced as an English ch. The Cupüik dialect is readily distinguished from other dialects of Yupüik by the pronunciation of the Yupüik "y" sound as a "ch" sound (represented by the letter "c"), and by some fundamental differences in the basic vocabulary.
The oldest fully bilingual person in Chevak is Leo Moses, born in 1933; there are few if any persons born after 1945 who do not speak English.
The first documentation of the Hooper Bay-Chevak dialect (beyond occasional citations) is found in the unpublished notes of Jesuit priests residing at Hooper Bay and Kashunuk in the 1920s and 1930s. Published recognition of Hooper Bay-Chevak as a morphologically distinct dialect of Yupüik seems to begin with Michael E. Krauss in 1973, although the fundamental differences between the dialects were common knowledge among native speakers. Cup'ik is a critically threatened language, and English the primary language of everyday communication among most of those with knowledge of the language.
Their unique cultural and linguistic identity has allowed them to form a single-site school district, the Kashunamiut School District, rather than joining a neighboring Yupüik school district. English and Cupüik bilingual education is done at this school. There is a tri-language system in Chevak; English, Cupüik, and a mixture of the two languages.
Before 1950 formal education for students in Chevak took place in the Qaygiq (semi-underground men's community house), and in the homes of the people.
The comparison of some words in the two dialects.
There are 18 letters used in the Cupüik alphabet: a c e g i k l m n p q r s t u v w y.
These letters are not used in the Cupüik alphabet except for certain names: b d f h j o x z.
Vowels:
The Russian loanwords used in Chevak Cupüik date from the period of the Russian America (1733âÂÂ1867).