Naukan is the language of the Naukan Yupik/Eskimo. The language name is derived from the name of the settlement of Naukan (Нувуқақ in Naukan), where speakers of the Naukan Eskimo language historically lived. In English this language is referred to as the Naukan Yupik language or the Naukan Siberian Yupik language.
Census data make the estimation of the number of Naukans (as well as the number of those who can speak Naukan) hard, since traditionally censuses unite all the groups of Asian Eskimos (consequently, speakers of three languages: Chaplinski (or Chaplino dialect, Chaplinski Yupik), Naukan and now extinct Sirenik) into one ethnic group.
Naukan is close to extinction. The language is no longer handed down from an older generation to the younger: parents and grandparents do not speak to their children in their first language, while the only factor making a language resilient and sustainable is real-life communication in families, intergenerational transmission of the language. All the Naukan speakers can speak other languages: traditionally, nearly all men and many women knew Chukot well, now all the Naukans can speak Russian and use Russian far more frequently than Naukan.