Eskimo-Aleut languages
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Eskimo-Aleut is a language family native to Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, Alaska, and parts of Siberia. It consists of the Eskimo languages, known as Inuit in the north of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, as Yup'ik in the west of Alaska, and as Yuit in Siberia, on the one side, and the single Aleut language on the other.
Eskimo is a dispreferred name, but is retained to speak of the Yuit-Yup'ik-Inuit as a whole. Within Canada, Inuit is preferred. In Alaska, Yup'ik or Inuit is preferred, depending on who is being referred to.
Traditionally, the Eskimo languages family was divided into Inuit and Yup'ik (or Yup'ik-Yuit). However, recent research suggests that Yup'ik by itself is not a valid node, or, equivalently, that the Inuit dialect continuum is but one of several languages of the Yup'ik group. However, although it may be technically correct to replace the term Eskimo with Yup'ik in this classification, this would not be acceptable to most Inuit. Also, the Alaskan-Siberian dichotomy appears to have been geographical rather than linguistic.
Eskimo-Aleut
- Aleut
- Aleut language
- Western-Central dialects: Atkan, Attuan, Unangan, Bering (60-80 speakers)
- Eastern dialect: Unalaskan, Pribilof (400 speakers)
- Aleut language
- Eskimo (Yup'ik, Yuit, and Inuit)
- Central Alaskan Yup'ik (10,000 speakers)
- Alutiiq or Pacific Gulf Yup'ik (400 speakers)
- Yuit or Central Siberian Yupik (Chaplinon and St Lawrence Island, 1400 speakers)
- Naukan (70 speakers)
- Sirenik (1 speaker)
- Inuit or Inupik (75,000 speakers)
- Iñupiaq (northern Alaska, 3500 speakers)
- Inuvialuktun or Inuktun (western Canada)
- Inuktitut (eastern Canada; together with Inuktun, 24,000 speakers)
- Kalaallisut (Greenland, 47,000 speakers)an:Luengas esquimo-aleutianas
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