| Yugtun | |
| Type: | Syllabary |
| Time: | Invented 1900 |
| Languages: | Central Alaskan Yup'ik |
| Creator: | Uyaquq |
| Sample: | Yugtun-script Lord's Prayer.jpg |
| Ipa-Note: | no |
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,[1] 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.[2] Although Uyaquq never learned English or the Latin alphabet, he was influenced by both.[1] 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.[1]