The diffusion of Chukchi “magic words” in Chukotkan and St. Lawrence Island Yupik folklore texts
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The languages of the Siberian Yupik region, including Chukotka in the Russian Far East and St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, have been heavily influenced by Chukchi, a genetically unrelated language. In this paper, I focus on Chukchi influences on Yupik folklore. Apparently meaningless “magic words” or formulae used in Yupik tales often appear to be of Chukchi origin. In Chukotka, their Chukchi origin is sometimes recognized by speakers of Yupik, but on St. Lawrence Island, the origin and meaning of the “magic words” is not recognized. The existence of “magic words” provides us with information about the sociolinguistic relationship between Siberian Yupik speakers and Chukchi. The Chukchi were in a position of power with respect to the Siberian Yupiget since they were more numerous, and since the Yupiget depended on them for trade. As a result, the Yupiget saw their Chukchi neighbours and their language as threatening and mysterious, and expressed this feeling by having the foreign protagonists of their tales talk in this strange language.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".