About the Dictionary

This site is an implementation of and ongoing expansion on an existing print dictionary for St. Lawrence Island Yupik/Akuzipik. The source dictionary is the culmination of many years of diligent documentary work by Linda Womkon Badten (Aghnaghaghpik), Vera Oovi Kaneshiro (Uqiitlek), Marie Oovi (Uvegtu), Christopher Koonooka (Petuwaq) and Steven A. Jacobson, first published in 1987 and most recently revised in 2008 (Badten et al 2008). This electronic dictionary presents the information compiled in Badten et al (2008) and preserves all lexical entry data contained therein in a searchable digital database.

Contents
Methodology

The implementation of this electronic dictionary, as well as the accompanying work on Akuzipik that our team has engaged in, has been undertaken with ongoing discussions with rights holders in the Akuzipik-speaking community in the villages of Sivuqaq (Gambell) and Sivungaq (Savoonga). This work is part of a larger project that includes documentation, digitization, building computer tools for the use of speakers and scholars, and supporting revitalization and pedagogical efforts in the community.

Igamsiqayugvikamsi to all the Yupiget who have used and provided feedback about the online dictionary in its various forms. Any mistakes herein or in the online implementations of the dictionary are entirely our own.

Morphological Parser

This dictionary integrates a morphological parser developed using foma, a toolkit for the creation of finite state automata and transducers created by Mans Hulden (Hulden 2009). The parser was implemented in foma originally by Emily Chen (Chen & Schwartz 2018) and later converted to a javascript version using a Pearl script also developed by Mans Hulden. The parser is built in to the dictionary and is used anytime a user executes a search from the search bar. It has also been given its own dedicated word builder interface, Itemquulteki, which allows the user to both construct Akuzpik words from component morphemes and break down full words into possible parses.

Overview of an Entry
Diagram of an entry
The Word Wheel

The Word Wheel is located to the right of the main entry section and contains an alphabetized list of all entries in the dictionary. The current entry is centered and highlighted when the page is first loaded and other entries can be accessed by clicking on any word visible in the wheel. Other entries can be viewed by scrolling up or down on the Word Wheel using the arrow buttons on the top and bottom of the wheel.

Word Wheel
Entry Tags

Each entry is labeled with one or more tags which describe things like the headword's part of speech, its status as a loanword, certain pragmatic information, dialectal differences, or whether the word is commonly used in the Akuzipik corpus.

These tags are explained below:

NOUN

Akuzipik nouns inflect for seven cases, four persons, and three numbers.

VERB

Verbs inflect for eleven moods, transitivity, four persons, and three numbers and exhibit polypersonal agreement in transitive constructions.

PROPER NOUN

Proper nouns are listed in citation form and begin with a capital letter.

PARTICLE

Words that otherwise have not been assigned a particular part of speech in the source documents, and may serve a variety of grammatical functions. Particles may also carry an additional tag specifying discourse-level quality:

EXCLAMATORY CONJUNCTIVE INTERJECTIONAL ADVERBIAL

ROOT

Roots that are not licit forms in their own right, but serve as the morphological base for a number of Akuzipik nouns and verbs.

EMOTIONAL

A classification given by Badten, et al. (2008) to a number of verbs which involve experiencing a particular feeling or being in a particular emotional state.

POSTURAL

A classification given by Badten, et al. (2008) to a number of verbs which involve being in a certain position, state or, more generally, "posture". These verbs have both an active form to indicate getting into that posture and a stative form to indicate being in that posture.

DIMENSIONAL

A classification given by Badten, et al. (2008) to a number of verbs which involve physical size or dimension.

CHUKOTKAN

Words used primarily in the Chukotkan dialect.

Jacobson's Attachment Rules

The derivational morphemes listed in the lexicon are often prefixed by a number of symbols denoting how the morpheme affects the base it attaches to phonologically. These symbols were present in the print dictionary and are preserved here for the sake of consistency.

Symbol Meaning
~f Drop final e
~sf Drop semi-final e
~ Drop final and semi-final e
–w Drop weak final consonants; keep strong final consonants
– Drop all final consonants (both strong and weak)
+ Attach the ending as presented
: Uvular dropping
@ Modification of base-final te
( ) Segment(s) used optionally, if the environment calls for it
* Unattested form (if word-initial); Upredictably strong gh (if word-final)
< > Segment between brackets only appears certain forms of the word
? Non-productive form; Attachment rules undetermined
Suggestions?

If you have any suggestions for improvements to the dictionary, additions or corrections to existing entries, or Akuzipik words or phrases that we don't have record of, please submit this information using the form on the contact page.


Igamsiqayugvikamsi!

References

Badten, L.W. (Aghnaghaghpik), Kaneshiro, V.O. (Uqiitlek), Oovi, M. (Uvegtu), & Koonooka, C. (Petuwaq). (2008). St. Lawrence Island/Siberian Yupik Eskimo dictionary. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Chen, E., & Schwartz, L. (2018, May). A morphological analyzer for st. lawrence island/central siberian yupik. In Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018).

Hulden, M. (2009, April). Foma: a finite-state compiler and library. In Proceedings of the Demonstrations Session at EACL 2009 (pp. 29-32).

Jacobson, Steven A. (2001). A Practical Grammar of the St. Lawrence Island / Siberian Yupik Eskimo Language. Second Edition. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

© 2025 St.Lawrence Island