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"Yupik language teaching in Chukotka"
Natalia (Qurangawen) Rodionova
Études/Inuit/Studies, vol. 31, n°1-2, 2007, p. 251-255.
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Yupik language teaching in Chukotka
Natalia (Qurangawen) Rodionova*
R é s u m é : Enseignement de la langue yupik en Tchoukotka
Ce texte décrit brièvement les différents cours en langue yupik qui sont offerts en Tchoukotka. L'auteure commente le matériel pédagogique qui y est présentement utilisé.
A b s t r a c t : Yupik language teaching in Chukotka
This text briefly describes the différent Yupik language courses offered in Chukotka. The author also comments on the pedagogical material that is presently used.
Introduction
The linguistic situation ( a m o n g the Yupik people in Chukotka) has changed dramatically in the last 30 to 50 years. During the 1950s and up to the 1970s, people still understood and spoke the Yupik language. N o w a d a y s , rural Yupik people older than 30 still understand, but cannot speak, the Yupik language. Youth under 30 neither understand nor speak Yupik. Besides, the Yupik pupils cannot even p r o n o u n c e s o m e characteristic Yupik language sounds. In this context, teachers in the Chukchi and Yupik languages have to not only teach the Native languages but also write, approve, and publish éducative materials adapted to the current language situation. There is an urgent need to prépare new educational materials for the learning of the N a t i v e language from the very beginning, as if it w e r e a "foreign" language.
Today the Yupik language (Chaplinski dialect) teaching in Chukotka is carried out in t w o village schools in the Provideniya District (Sireniki, N o v o e Chaplino) and in one school in the Iultin District (Uelkal), as well as at the Chukotka Multidisciplinary Collège, in the R é g i o n ' s capital of Anadyr. This paper describes the différent Yupik
C h u k o t k a Multidisciplinary C o l l è g e , 3 S t u d e n c h e s k a y a St., A n a d y r , C h u k o t k a , Russia 6 8 9 0 0 0 . i c c @ h o t b o x . r u
language courses offered in Chuktotka and the pedagogical materials (readings and teaching aids) that are presently used.
Courses offered
Both the Yupik (Siberian or Central Siberian Yupik) and the Chukchi languages have been taught in the collège since its opening in 2 0 0 3 under the following programs: " O u r language and literature," "Teaching in primary school," and "Applied arts and national crafts." Students can choose Native language courses as either mandatory or optional classes. Unfortunately, our collège, as well as secondary schools in the villages of Chukotka, suffer from the lack of n e w Native language h a n d b o o k s , and particularly Yupik language manuals. Yupik language teachers, students in village schools, pedagogical schools as well as in the multidisciplinary collège are still doing classes with 30 or even 50 year-old m a n u a l s1.
N e w pedagogical material
In 2004, I developed a n e w handbook entitled Praktikim po eskimosskomu iazyku
( ' E s k i m o language exercises') as part of the project "Increasing Indigenous access in Siberia to high éducation" (Rodionova 2006) funded by the University of Novosibirsk. This handbook was produced for a practical course in Yupik language for beginners. A s addition to it, in 2007 the Chukotka Multidisciplinary Collège published m y textbook Sbornik rasskazov russkikh pisatelei, perevedennykh na eskimosskii iazyk
('Russian writers translated in Eskimo l a n g u a g e ' )2. Its overall aim is to help students to
develop a good speech culture and literacy in gênerai linguistics. One can find in it short stories and excerpts from Anton Chekhov, Lev Tolstoy, Konstantin Ushinskii, Elena Il'ina, Nikolai N o s o v , Valentina Osseieva, Anatoly Panteleev, L. Voronkova, and Victor Suteev. The stories were translated in Yupik language by elders from the Yupik villages w h o are experts in Chaplinski and Imtuski (Imtuk) dialects3. This makes
the textbook useful not only for the Yupik language classes but also for the course on "Dialectology" in the p r o g r a m " O u r language and literature." The textbook reflects
Until recently the only t e a c h i n g materials for the Y u p i k l a n g u a g e p r o g r a m at t h e C h u k o t k a Multidisciplinary C o l l è g e w e r e s o m e p h o t o c o p i e s of old m a n u a l s and t e x t b o o k s ( R u b t s o v a and G u k h u g e 1965; S e m u s h k i n 1948) as well as s o m e single c o p i e s of Y u p i k l a n g u a g e m a n u a l s from the 1980s ( A i n a n a 1984; A i n a n a and N a k a z i k 1987). T h e r e h a d been n o input o f any p o s t - 1 9 9 0 Yupik l a n g u a g e pedagogical b o o k in o u r collège.
T h e v o l u m e ( R o d i o n o v a 2 0 0 7 b ) contains 31 texts in Y u p i k l a n g u a g e . T h e translators are Anatoly Saliko, Valentina B r a g i n a and A r o n N u t a y g ' e ( N u t a w y i ) . A s e c o n d — b i l i n g u a l — é d i t i o n that will include the original Russian texts is p l a n n e d to appear in 2 0 0 8 for the students in the " O u r l a n g u a g e and literature" p r o g r a m at the C h u k o t k a Multidisciplinary C o l l è g e .
It is p o s s i b l e that s o m e texts from the 2 0 0 7 v o l u m e had already been translated into Y u p i k in the 1930s and 1940s and included in the Y u p i k classes (see c o m p l è t e bibliography in K r a u s s 1973). Unfortunately, there are n o c o p i e s o f t h o s e early publications in the libraries in C h u k o t k a ; so the n e w génération o f Yupik l a n g u a g e teachers a n d students d o not even k n o w a b o u t their e x i s t e n c e .
well the différences between the Yupik dialects that are spoken in N o v o e Chaplino and in Sireniki.
Another textbook was just published by the Chukotka Multidisciplinary Collège, entitled Sbornik rasskazov o starinnykh seleniiakh eskimosov Providenskogo raiona
('Collected stories about ancient Eskimo settlements in the Provideniya District') (Rodionova 2007a). It includes s o m e oral stories from Yupik elders recorded by the ethnographer Igor Krupnik in the 1970s and 1980s (Krupnik 2000). O n e can find in it stories from Sireniki, N o v o e Chaplino and Provideniya about the traditional Yupik w a y of life, hunting methods, and customs. That textbook includes 26 stories in both Yupik and Russian languages (translations in Yupik language w e r e done by A r o n N u t a u g ' e [Nutawyi] and edited by N . Rodionova). Thèse stories are to be used in courses aiming to develop speech and reading skills in the Yupik language. So far, this textbook has been used only for the Yupik language programs at the Chukotka Multidisciplinary Collège, though there is a strong demand for it from Yupik language teachers in s o m e village s c h o o l s4.
The Chukotka Multidisciplinary Collège also released the handbook Ukazatel' suffiksov eskimosskogo iazyka ('Index of suffixes in E s k i m o language') (Rodionova 2007c). It présents a summary table of the major suffixes in the Yupik language. This material is extremely important for the organisation of Yupik language lessons since Yupik is an agglutinative language, that is, the w o r d s are m a d e up of attaching suffixes to a root, and each suffix brings a n e w meaning. Therefore translating Yupik words to students w h o have not studied Yupik language before is a big challenge. In this context, the n e w index of suffixes is a valuable tool in learning word structures as well as in translating words, prépositions, and intégral texts from Yupik to Russian and vice versa.
A precious complément to the Eskimo language exercises for lst year collège
students (Rodionova 2006) and to the Yupik language manual by Georgii A.
M e n o v s h c h i k o v and Nikolai B. Vakhtin (1990) is the g r a m m a r h a n d b o o k Formy glagoVnoi osnovy ULIMA- "masterit" v eskimosskom jazyke ('Linguistic variations in the verb U L I M A - " t o m a k e " in Eskimo l a n g u a g e ' ) ( R o d i o n o v a 2 0 0 7 d ) . It includes tables with the grammar forms of one précise verb with ail possible form-building and suffixes. Furthermore, the handbook présents verb structures in various declinations; the m e c h a n i s m of suffixing and various phonetic processes that occur w h e n morphèmes are being connected to the root. In addition to the verb forms, it contains some nouns derived from the root ulima with the help of various suffixes. Finally, several examples of noun declensions are shown to the students in order to understand correctly the structure of the adjective and possessive forms.
Today, village schools in Chukotka suffer from acute déficit in Yupik language manuals and so are forced to use publications from the 1980s. N e w literature in Yupik language is practically absent from the village schools. In 2 0 0 6 , I personally sent to the school in Sireniki one copy o f my first-year manual that was in print at that time (Rodionova 2006).
C o n c l u s i o n
Yupik language beginners need the pedagogical materials described above. There is still an enormous work ahead in order to create a n e w génération of Native language manuals for the n e w génération of students and teachers. The good news is that the work has already begun and will continue in the spécial language laboratory at the Chukotka Multidisciplinary Collège.
R é f é r e n c e s A I N A N A , Lyudmila I.
1984 Kniga dlia chteniia dlia 2-go klassa eskimosskikh shkol ( ' R e a d i n g book for 2nd-year students in Eskimo s c h o o l s ' ) , M o s c o w and Leningrad, Prosveshchenie Publishers.
A I N A N A , Lyudmila I. and Gleb A. N A K A Z I K
1987 Kniga dlia dopolnitel'nogo chteniia v 1-2 klassakh eskimosskikh shkol
( ' B o o k for additional readings for l s t and 2nd-year students in Eskimo schools'), Leningrad, Prosveshchenie.
K R A U S S , Michael E.
1973 Eskimo-Aleut, in T h o m a s Sebeok (éd.), Linguistics in North America, The Hague and Paris, Mouton, Current Trends in Linguistics, 10(2): 7 9 6 - 8 9 5 . K R U P N I K , Igor I. (compiler)
2000 Pust' govoriat nashi stariki. Rasskazy aziatskikh eskimosov-yupik. Zapisi 1975-1987 gg./Chukotkam yupigeta ungipamsuget ('Let Our Elders Speak. Stories of the Yupik [Asiatic Eskimo] of Chukotka. Writings, 1975-1987'), M o s c o w , Rossiiskii Institut kul'turnogo and prirodnogo naslediia,
M E N O V S H C H I K O V , Georgii A. and Nikolai B . V A K H T I N
1990 Eskimoskii iazyk ( ' E s k i m o language'), 2nd édition, revised, for students in pedagogical schools, Leningrad, Prosveshchenie.
R O D I O N O V A , Natalia P. (ed.)
2006 Praktikim po eskimosskomu iazyku dlia studentov 1 kursa ( ' E s k i m o language exercises for lst-year collège students'), Novosibirsk, University of Novosibirsk.
2 0 0 7 a Sbornik rasskazov o starinnykh seleniiiakh eskimossov Providenskogo raiona ('Collected stories about ancient Eskimo settlements in the Provideniya District'). Anadyr, Chukotskii mnogoprofil'nyi kolledzh.
2 0 0 7 b Sbornik rasskazov russkikh pisatelei, perevedennykh na eskimosskii iazyk
('Russian writers translated in Eskimo language'), A n a d y r , Chukotskii mnogoprofiPnyi kolledzh.
2007c Ukazatel' suffiksov eskimosskogo iazyka ('Index of suffixes in E s k i m o language'), Anadyr, Chukotskii mnogoprofil'nyi kolledzh.
2007d Formy glagoVnoi osnovy ULIMA- "masterit" v eskimosskom iazyke
('Linguistic variations in the verb U L I M A - " t o m a k e " in E s k i m o language'), Anadyr, Chukotskii mnogoprofil'nyi kolledzh.
R U B T S O V A , Ekaterina S. and Sergei M. G U K H U G E
1965 Bukvar' dlia podgotvitel'nogo klassa eskimosskoi nachaVnoi shkoly
('Primer for the preliminary year in the Eskimo primary s c h o o l s ' ) , M o s c o w and Leningrad, Prosveshchenie.
S E M U S H K I N , Tikhon Z.
1948 Taleko i ego khrabryi Lilit ('Taleko and his brave Lilith'), translated in Yupik language by G. Uygakhpaq, Leningrad, Prosveshchenie.
