Siberian Yupik Names for Birds: What Can Bird Names Tell Us about Language and Knowledge Transitions?

• Published in: Études Inuit Studies
• Main Author: Igor Krupnik
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Centre interuniversitaire d’études et de recherches autochtones (CIÉRA) 2019
• Subjects: Sciences Humaines et Sociales; Social Sciences and Humanities; Siberian; St. Lawrence Island; Yupik; Indigenous knowledge; birds; language and knowledge shift; Sibérie; île St. Lawrence; savoirs autochtones; oiseaux; langue et changement des connaissances; General Arts and Humanities; General Social Sciences; litt; anthro-se; Bering Strait; Lawrence Island; Chukotka; Détroit de Béring; eskimo*; Siberian Yupik; St Lawrence Island; St. Lawrence Island Yupik; Yupiit; Alaska
• Online Access: http://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/etudinuit/2017-v41-n1-2-etudinuit04714/1061438ar.pdf; https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1061438ar; https://doi.org/10.7202/1061438ar; https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/etudinuit/2017-v41-n1-2-etudinuit04714/1061438ar/; https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/99353; https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2959100192

This article analyzes the list of Siberian Yupik names for birds from Chukotka, Russia, from the unpublished “Dictionary of Traditional Subsistence Terminology of the Asiatic Yupik Eskimo” (n.d., [2010]), produced by the late Russian biologist Lyudmila Bogoslovskaya and Yupik language expert Lyudmila Ainana. It compares Bogoslovskaya and Ainana’s list against other lists of Indigenous bird names compiled in Chukotka and among the nearby Native Alaskan groups in the Bering Strait area, and biological (Linnaean) bird nomenclatures for the same region. The sequence of collected Yupik bird name lists from the 1930s to the early 2000s reveals a strong correlation to the advancing language and knowledge shift, as the Chukotka Yupik were increasingly driven to bilingualism by the Russian-dominated speech environment, media, and school system. By the time ornithologists and linguists compiled the first Native lists of bird names, the Yupik in Chukotka had already lost certain layers of their traditional bird taxonomy, but some of its elements may be construed. As the loss of traditional names for birds continues, the Yupik actively borrow Russian terms (or English, in Alaska) to describe many bird species they encounter in their environment. Cet article analyse la liste des noms yupik sibériens d’oiseaux de la Tchoukotka (Russie), à partir du Dictionnaire de terminologie de subsistance traditionnelle du yupik eskimo asiatique (Dictionary of Traditional Subsistence Terminology of the Asiatic Yupik Eskimo, n.d., [2010]), réalisé la biologiste russe Lyudmila Bogoslovskaya et l’experte de langue yupik Lyudmila Ainana. Il compare la liste d’Ainana et Bogoslovskaya avec d’autres listes de noms vernaculaires d’oiseaux compilées en Tchoukotka et parmi les groupes autochtones voisins de la partie alaskienne du détroit de Béring, ainsi qu’avec les nomenclatures linnéennes des biologistes pour la même région. La séquence des listes yupiit de noms d’oiseaux collectées entre les années 1930 et le début des années 2000 révèle une ...