Yugtun
Script type	Syllabary
Creator	Uyaquq
Period	1900
Direction	Left-to-right
Languages	Central Alaskan Yup'ik

TheYugtun orAlaska script is asyllabary invented around the year 1900 byUyaquq to write theCentral Alaskan Yup'ik language. Uyaquq, who was monolingual in Yup'ik but had a son who was literate in English,^[2] initially used Indigenouspictograms as a form ofproto-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 theLatin alphabet did for English-speaking missionaries, he and his assistants developed it until it became a full syllabary.^[3] Although Uyaquq never learned English or the Latin alphabet, he was influenced by both.^[2] The syllablekut, for example, resembles the cursive form of the English wordgood.

The Yup'ik language is now generally written in the Latin alphabet.^[2]

• 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. 1Text, vol. 2.Abbildungen

• Syllabary writing systems
• Yupik languages
• Constructed scripts
• Writing systems of the Americas
• Writing systems introduced in 1900

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata