Sakha language
| Sakha | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Саха тыла Saxa tila | ||||
| Native to | Russia | |||
| Region | Sakha | |||
| Native speakers | 363,000 (1993)[1] | |||
| Language family |
Turkic
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| Writing system | Cyrillic | |||
| Official status | ||||
| Official language in |  Sakha Republic |
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-2 | sah | |||
| ISO 639-3 | sah | |||
Locations of Sakha (dark blue) and Dolgan (blue)
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Sakha, or Yakut, is a Turkic language with around 360,000 native speakers spoken in the Sakha Republic in the Russian Federation by the Sakha or Yakuts.
Sakha is an agglutinative language, and it employs vowel harmony.
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Classification [edit]
Sakha is a member of the Northern Turkic family of languages, which includes Shor, Tuvan, and Dolgan in addition to Sakha. Like Turkish, Sakha has vowel harmony, is agglutinative and has no grammatical gender. Word order is usually subject–object–verb.
Geographic distribution [edit]
Sakha is spoken mainly in the Sakha Republic. It is also used by ethnic Sakha in Khabarovsk Region and a small diaspora in other parts of the Russian Federation, Turkey, and other parts of the world. Dolgan, a close relative of Sakha, considered by some[who?] a dialect, is spoken by Dolgans in Krasnoyarsk Region. Sakha is widely used as a lingua franca by other ethnic minorities in the Sakha Republic – more Dolgans, Evenks, Evens and Yukagirs speak Yakut than their own languages. About 8% of the people of other ethnicities than Yakut living in Sakha claimed knowledge of the Yakut language during the 2002 census.[2]
Phonology [edit]
One characteristic feature of Sakha is vowel harmony. For example, if the first vowel of a Sakha word is a front vowel, the second and other vowels of the same word are usually the same vowel or another front vowel: кэлин (kelin) "back": э (e) is open unrounded front, и (i) is close unrounded front.
Consonants [edit]
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | c | ɟ | k | ɡ | ||||
| Fricative | s | x | ɣ | h | ||||||||
| Approximant | l | j, ȷ̃ | ||||||||||
| Tap | ɾ | |||||||||||
Vowels [edit]
| Short | Long | Diphthong | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | Open | Close | Open | |||
| Front | Unrounded | i | e | iː | eː | ie |
| Rounded | y | ø | yː | øː | yø | |
| Back | Unrounded | ɯ | a | ɯː | aː | ɯa |
| Rounded | u | o | uː | oː | uo | |
Writing system [edit]
Sakha is written using the Cyrillic script: the modern Sakha alphabet, established in 1939 by the Soviet Union, consists of the usual Russian characters but with 5 additional letters: Ҕҕ, Ҥҥ, Өө, Һһ, Үү.
Сахалыы сурук-бичигэ Saxalii suruk-bichige (Sakha alphabet)
| Letter | Name | IPA | Note | Official Latin[citation needed] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| А а | а | /a/ | A a | |
| Б б | бэ | /b/ | B b | |
| В в | вэ | /v/ | found only in Russian loanwords [3] | V v |
| Г г | гэ | /ɡ/ | G g | |
| Ҕ ҕ | ҕэ | /ɣ, ʁ/ | G‘ g‘ | |
| Д д | дэ | /d/ | D d | |
| Дь дь | дьэ | /ɟ/ | D‘ d‘ | |
| Е е | е | /e, je/ | found only in Russian loanwords | Ye ye or e |
| Ё ё | ё | /jo/ | found only in Russian loanwords | Yo yo |
| Ж ж | жэ | /ʒ/ | found only in Russian loanwords | J j |
| З з | зэ | /z/ | found only in Russian loanwords | Z z |
| И и | и | /i/ | I i | |
| Й й | йот | /j, ȷ̃/ | Nasalization of the glide is not indicated in the orthography | Y y |
| К к | ка | /k, q/ | K k or Q q | |
| Л л | эл | /l/ | L l | |
| М м | эм | /m/ | M m | |
| Н н | эн | /n/ | N n | |
| Ҥ ҥ | эҥ | /ŋ/ | Ng ng | |
| Нь нь | эньэ | /ɲ/ | N‘ n‘ | |
| О о | о | /o/ | O o | |
| Ө ө | ө | /ø/ | O‘ o‘ | |
| П п | пэ | /p/ | P p | |
| Р р | эр | /ɾ/ | R r | |
| С с | эс | /s/ | S s | |
| Һ һ | һэ | /h/ | H h | |
| Т т | тэ | /t/ | T t | |
| У у | у | /u/ | U u | |
| Ү ү | ү | /y/ | U‘ u‘ | |
| Ф ф | эф | /f/ | found only in Russian loanwords | F f |
| Х х | ха | /x/ | X x | |
| Ц ц | цэ | /ts/ | found only in Russian loanwords | Ts ts |
| Ч ч | че | /c/ | Ch ch | |
| Ш ш | ша | /ʃ/ | found only in Russian loanwords | Sh sh |
| Щ щ | ща | /ɕː/ | found only in Russian loanwords | Shch shch |
| Ъ ъ | кытаатыннарар бэлиэ | /◌./ | found only in Russian loanwords | ' |
| Ы ы | ы | /ɯ/ | I i | |
| Ь ь | сымнатыы бэлиэтэ | /◌ʲ/ | natively in дь and нь (see above); otherwise only in Russian loanwords | ‘ |
| Э э | э | /e/ | E e | |
| Ю ю | ю | /ju/ | found only in Russian loanwords | Yu yu |
| Я я | я | /ja/ | found only in Russian loanwords | Ya ya |
Grammar [edit]
Syntax [edit]
The typical word order can be summarized as subject adverb – object – verb; possessor – possessed; noun – adjective.
Nouns [edit]
Nouns have plural and singular forms. The plural is formed with the suffix /-LAr/, which may surface as [-лар (-lar)], [-лэр (-ler)], [-лөр (-lör)], [-лор (-lor)], [-тар (-tar)], [-тэр (-ter)], [-төр (-tör)], [-тор (-tor)], [-дар (-dar)], [-дэр (-der)], [-дөр (-dör)], [-дор (-dor)], [-нар (-nar)], [-нэр (-ner)], [-нөр (-nör)], or [-нор (-nor)], depending on the preceding consonants and vowels. The plural is used only when referring to a number of things collectively, not when specifying an amount. Nouns have no gender, but the pronoun system distinguishes between human and non-human in the third person, using кини (kini, 'he/she') to refer to human beings and ол (ol, 'it') to refer to all other things.[4]
Pronouns [edit]
Personal pronouns in Sakha distinguish between first, second, and third persons and singular and plural number.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | мин (min) | биһиги (bihigi) |
| 2nd | эн (en) | эһиги (ehigi) |
| 3rd | кини (kini) | кинилэр (kiniler) |
Questions [edit]
Question words in Sakha remain in-situ; they do not move to the front of the sentence. Sample question words include: туох (tuox) "what", ким (kim) "who", хайдах (xaydax) "how", хас (xas) "how much", ханна (xanna) "where", and ханнык (xannık) "which".
Numbers [edit]
In this table, the Sakha numbers are written in Latin transcription (see Writing system).
| Old Turkic | Turkish | Sakha | English |
| Bir | Bir | Biir | One |
| Eki | İki | Ikki | Two |
| Üç | Üç | U‘s | Three |
| Tört | Dört | Tu‘o‘rt | Four |
| Beş | Beş | Bies | Five |
| Altı | Altı | Alta | Six |
| Yeti | Yedi | Sette | Seven |
| Sekiz | Sekiz | Ag‘is | Eight |
| Tokuz | Dokuz | Tog‘us | Nine |
| On | On | Uon | Ten |
Literature [edit]
The first printing in Sakha was a part of a book by Nicolaas Witsen published in 1692 in Amsterdam.
In 2005, Marianne Beerle-Moor, director of the Institute for Bible Translation, Russia/CIS, was awarded the “Civil Valour” Order for the translation of the New Testament into Sakha.[5]
Oral traditions [edit]
The Sakha have a tradition of oral epic in their language called "Olonkho", traditionally performed by skilled performers. Only a very few older performers of this Olonkho tradition are still alive. They have begun a program to teach young people to sing this in their language and revive it, though in a modified form.[6]
See also [edit]
- Yakuts
- Dolgan language
- Semyon Novgorodov – the inventor of the first IPA-based Yakut alphabet
References [edit]
- ^ SIL Ethnologue, out of an ethnic population of 443,852. According to perepis2002.ru, the Russian census of 2002 recorded 456,288 speakers with "knowledge" of Yakut Распространенность владения языками (кроме русского)(Knowledge of languages other than Russian)(Russian)
- ^ Russian Census 2002. 6. Владение языками (кроме русского) населением отдельных национальностей по республикам, автономной области и автономным округам Российской Федерации (Knowledge of languages other than Russian by the population of republics, autonomous oblast and autonomous districts) (Russian)
- ^ Krueger, John R. (1962). Yakut Manual. Bloomington: Indiana U Press.
- ^ Kirişçioğlu, M. Fatih (1999). Saha (Yakut) Türkçesi Grameri. Ankara: Türk Dil Kurumu. ISBN 975-16-0587-3.
- ^ "about". Institute for Bible Translation, Russia/CIS. Retrieved 5 Nov 2011.
- ^ Robin Harris. 2012. Sitting "under the mouth": decline and revitalization in the Skha epic tradition "Olonkho". Doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia.
External links [edit]
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Sakha language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
[edit]
- Sakha Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
- Sakha thematic vocabulary lists
- Comparison of Yakut and Mongolian vocabulary
- Yakut texts with Russian translations – heroic poetry, fairy tales, legends, proverbs, etc.
- Sakhalyy suruk – Sakha Unicode fonts and Keyboard Layouts for PC
- Sakhatyla.ru – On-line Yakut–Russian, Russian–Yakut dictionary
- Sakha–English Dictionary
- Sakha Open World – mp3's of Sakha Radio
Content in Sakha [edit]
- Sakha Open World – Орто Дойду – A platform to promote the Yakut Language on the web; News, Lyrics, Music, Fonts, Forum, VideoNews (in Yakut, Unicode)
- Baayaga village website – news and stories about and by the people of Baayaga (in Yakut)
- Kyym.ru – site of Yakut newspaper
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