Climate сhallenges in the Arctic: a systematic analysis of problems, adaptation strategies and linguocultural transformations of local communities in Yakutia and Alaska

The article examines climate-related transformations in Arctic communities living in areas of continuous permafrost. The relevance of the study is determined by the accelerated warming of the Arctic and the need to understand not only environmental and economic, but also linguocultural consequences of climate change. The aim of the research is to analyze five key problems: changes in the water regime of rivers and lakes, permafrost degradation, weather instability, shifts in species ranges, and changes in seasonal timing, as well as local adaptation strategies in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) and Alaska. The methodology is based on an interdisciplinary approach combining linguoecology, the anthropology of cold, and linguistic landscape analysis. The empirical material includes the authors’ field data collected in 2009–2025: interviews, sociological surveys, and municipal archive records, processed through content analysis and thematic coding. The results show that local communities use both traditional adaptation practices, including hay drying on wooden poles and draining water from thermokarst lakes, and technological solutions, such as adjustable steel piles in Alaska and village relocation to nonfloodable areas in Yakutia. It is shown that climate instability causes compression of the linguocultural landscape: the loss of precise nature-related vocabulary, the deactualization of calendar signs and paremias, and the weakening of links between traditional economic terminology and real seasonal phenomena. The conclusion emphasizes the need to include linguocultural monitoring in Arctic sustainable development strategies and to document vanishing traditional ecological knowledge. 

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