Central Alaskan Yupʼik language in the context of Ergative–absolutive alignment

The Yupʼik or Yupiaq (sg & pl) and Yupiit or Yupiat (pl), also Central Alaskan Yupʼik, Central Yupʼik, Alaskan Yupʼik (own name Yupʼik sg Yupiik dual Yupiit pl; Russian: Юпики центральной Аляски), are an Indigenous people of western and southwestern Alaska ranging from southern Norton Sound southwards along the coast of the Bering Sea on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (including living on Nelson and Nunivak Islands) and along the northern coast of Bristol Bay as far east as Nushagak Bay and the northern Alaska Peninsula at Naknek River and Egegik Bay. They are also known as Cupʼik by the Chevak Cupʼik dialect-speaking people of Chevak and Cupʼig for the Nunivak Cupʼig dialect-speaking people of Nunivak Island.

The Yupiit are the most numerous of the various Alaska Native groups and speak the Central Alaskan Yupʼik language, a member of the Eskimo–Aleut family of languages. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the Yupiit population in the United States numbered over 34,000 people, of whom over 22,000 lived in Alaska. The vast majority of these live in the seventy or so communities in the traditional Yupʼik territory of western and southwestern Alaska. About 10,000 speak the language. The Yupʼik had the greatest number of people who identified with one tribal grouping and no other race (29,000). In that census, nearly half of American Indians and Alaska Natives identified as being of mixed race.

The Kuskokwim River or Kusko River (Yupʼik: Kusquqvak; Deg Xinag: Digenegh; Upper Kuskokwim: Dichinanekʼ; Russian: Кускоквим (Kuskokvim)) is a river, 702 miles (1,130 km) long, in Southwest Alaska in the United States. It is the ninth largest river in the United States by average discharge volume at its mouth and seventeenth largest by basin drainage area. The Kuskokwim River is the longest river system contained entirely within a single U.S. state.

The river provides the principal drainage for an area of the remote Alaska Interior on the north and west side of the Alaska Range, flowing southwest into Kuskokwim Bay on the Bering Sea. The highest point in its watershed is Mount Russell. Except for its headwaters in the mountains, the river is broad and flat for its entire course, making it a useful transportation route for many types of watercraft, as well as road vehicles during the winter when it is frozen over. It is the longest free flowing river in the United States.