reproduced verbatim time after time. Uyaquq identified the concept of a syllable and his script evolved in five stages until he had created a symbol for each syllable in the language. Each of the five steps was documented in several notebooks kept by Uyaquq. He taught his writing system to several of his missionary helpers and they used it in their church work. Although the system adopted by most people for writing Yupik was the Roman-based script of Reverend Hinz, and, in about 1970, the University of Alaska system, Uyaquq's system has been studied because it may represent the same process of evolution from illiteracy to proto-writing to syllabary taken by many ancient written languages, like Chinese and Egyptian, but compressed into a period of five years. Uyaquq's notebooks and the writings of those who watched him at work have been the subject of research, beginning with Dr. Alfred Schmitt in the 1930s. References External links Yugtun cursive syllabary 1860s births 1924 deaths American Protestant missionaries American people of the Moravian Church Converts to Protestantism from pagan religions Creators of writing systems History of the Alaska Province of the Moravian Church Moravian Church missionaries People from Bethel Census Area, Alaska Religious leaders from Alaska Year of birth uncertain Yupik people Protestant missionaries in the United States Christian missionaries in Alaska Linguists of Eskaleut languages Missionary linguists