The Alutiiq (or Sugpiaq), Aleut, and Yup’ik descended from the Inupiat. Origins and group affiliationsĪbout six thousand years ago the Inupiat spread through much of the Arctic and Greenland. There are about 1,700 Yupik living in Russia in the early twenty-first century. Prior to European contact the Sugpiaq numbered around twenty thousand afterwards, their numbers fell to less than five thousand. Bureau of the Census, the population count for Yup’ik in 2000 was 21,937. Populationīefore the Europeans arrived the estimated population in Nunivak was five hundred in Yukon-Kuskokwim, thirteen thousand and in Bristol Bay, three thousand. Although the ancestors of the Yupik in Russia may have once inhabited a large territory along the Bering and Arctic Sea coasts, in the early twenty-first century they reside mainly in three small areas-Naukan, Chaplino (Central Siberian Yupik), and Sireniki. The Yup’ik live in western, southwestern, and southcentral Alaska and the Russian Far East. Their names for themselves also mean “real people.” Location
Those who live in the village of Chevak call themselves Cup’ik (plural Cup’it).
The Central Alaskan Yup’ik who live on Nunivak Island call themselves Cup’ig (plural Cup’it). The Siberian and Naukanski Yupik do not use the apostrophe. It comes from two words- yuk, meaning “person” or “human being,” and pik, meaning “real.” The plural is Yupiit, the “real people.” When Yup’ik is spelled with the apostrophe, it refers only to the Central Alaskan Yup’ik and shows that the “p” sound is long. The name Yup’ik, or Yupiaq, applies not only to the people but also to the language.