The Alutiiq language is officially called Sugt'stun, though throughout this program we will often call it simply "the Alutiiq language," or "Alutiiq." To speak Sugt'stun means, literally, to speak, "like a person." Sugt'stun belongs to the Esk-Aleut language family. The two main branches of this family tree are the Aleut language, spoken by the Unangan, or Aleut people of the Aleutian chain, and the Eskimoan languages. These two language branches spit off from each other about 9,000 years ago. The Alutiiq language is part of the Eskimoan branch, along with the Yup'ik languages of Western Alaska and Siberia, and the Inupiaq, or Inuit language of Northern Alaska and Canada. The relationships between these Native languages is shown in the diagram below:

Figure 1. Esk-Aleut Language Tree:

Modified from the Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 5, Arctic, 1984

As the languages within a branch are more closely related, it is easier to communicate within a branch. For example, an Alutiiq person can speak and communicate with a Yup'ik person without an interpreter. In fact, according to linguist Dr. Jeff Leer, Alutiiq and Yup'ik were probably at one time two dialects of the same language, but population patterns in the historical period have created a more distinct differentiation (Leer 1985). Some words are the same in both Yup'ik and Alutiiq, such as nuyat, the word for hair. Other words are different but related, such as the words for ten; qulen in Alutiiq, qula in Yup'ik. However, there is enough difference between the Yup'ik and Alutiiq languages to consider them linguistically distinct. The contrast between Alutiiq and Aleut is much more obvious. In Aleut, hair is imlis, and ten is hatix. An Alutiiq and an Aleut person would not be able to understand each other when speaking in their own languages (Knecht 1994). In order to communicate across cultures, Villagers long ago learned their neighbors' languages to facilitate trade and often used war captives as translators. Some Alutiiq people became multilingual, as young men returned from visits in foreign villages, or former slaves married into Alutiiq families.

There are two main dialects within the Alutiiq language: Koniag Alutiiq and Chugach Alutiiq. This means that they are the same language, but each exhibit differences in accent and vocabulary, much like the difference between American and Australian English speakers. Chugach Alutiiq is spoken in Port Graham, English Bay, and Seldovia, on the Kenai Peninsula and in Prince William Sound. Koniag Alutiiq is spoken on Kodiak Island and the Alaska Peninsula. Further, within Koniag Alutiiq there are sub-dialectical differences. The dialect explained in this computer program is the Koniag Alutiiq of Kodiak, which differs slightly from the Koniag Alutiiq of the Alaska Peninsula. There are slight differences in pronunciation within the Kodiak Alutiiq dialect that should be noted. For example, speakers from the northern sub-dialect of Karluk, Ouzinkie, Larsen Bay and Afognak pronounce the s sound like sh, while other villages in the archipelago simply pronounce it s. There are also word variances between the northern and southern sub-dialects. For instance, Afognak uses the word amikuk for octopus, while southern speakers say utgwiq (Leer 1978). Sub-dialectical differences seem to be related to the separation of certain communities from each other by geographical features. While these differences within and between the dialects are interesting, they are not great. Not only could a Uyak and an Akhiok person speak with ease, they could communicate without difficulty to their Alutiiq neighbors at Tatitlek in Prince William Sound.

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