{{Short description|Syllabary writing system}} {{Infobox writing system | name = Yugtun | type = Syllabary | time = 1900 | languages = Central Alaskan Yup'ik | creator = Uyaquq | sample = | iso15924 = | ipa-note = no | unicode = none }}
[[File:Юпикское_слоговое_письмо.jpg|thumb|The Lord's Prayer in Yugtun script.<ref name="Krerruertsaun">[http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-inuit.html The ''Pater Noster'' in Uyaquk's pictograms], 1909</ref>]] The '''Yugtun''' or '''Alaska script''' is a syllabary invented around the year 1900 by Uyaquq to write the Central Alaskan Yup'ik language. Uyaquq, who was monolingual in Yup'ik but had a son who was literate in English,<ref name="Blackwell">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Coulmas |first1=Florian |title=Yupik writing |encyclopedia=The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems |date=1999 |publisher=Blackwell Publishers |isbn=9780631194460 |pages=572–573}}</ref> initially used Indigenous pictograms as a form of proto-writing that served as a mnemonic in preaching the Bible. However, when he realized that this did not allow him to reproduce the exact words of a passage the way the Latin alphabet did for English-speaking missionaries, he and his assistants developed it until it became a full syllabary.<ref>Ian James, [http://skyknowledge.com/yupik.htm "Yugtun script"], ''Sky Knowledge'', April 2012</ref> Although Uyaquq never learned English or the Latin alphabet, he was influenced by both.<ref name="Blackwell"/> The syllable ''kut,'' for example, resembles the cursive form of the English word ''good.''
The Yup'ik language is now generally written in the Latin alphabet.<ref name="Blackwell"/>
==Bibliography== *Albertine Gaur, 2000. ''Literacy and the Politics of Writing'', {{ISBN|978-1841500119}} * Alfred Schmitt, 1951. ''Die Alaska-Schrift und ihre schriftgeschichtliche Bedeutung'', Simons, Marburg * Alfred Schmitt, 1981. ''Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Schrift. Eine Schriftentwicklung um 1900 in Alaska'', Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden (Reprint der Ausgabe Leipzig 1940), {{ISBN|3-447-02162-4}} **Vol. 1 ''Text,'' vol. 2. ''Abbildungen''
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{list of writing systems}}
Category:Syllabary writing systems Category:Yupik languages Category:Constructed scripts Category:Writing systems of the Americas Category:Writing systems introduced in the 1900s Category:1900 introductions