The Talking Yakut (Sakha) Phrasebook

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Each entry below, divided by category, features an English word or phrase in the left column and its Russian translation in the right. The Russian is presented in in English transliteration on top and in the original Cyrillic below that.

In the center column for each row is a play button. The recorded file will feature first English, then the Yakut in three versions: one slow, one with each syllable broken out, and a last version that will be spoken as it might be overheard in a conversation between native speakers. (In “Counting,” the audio files have been grouped into four quicker sets.)

Interesting Facts about Yakut (Sakha)

1. Sakha and Yakut are used interchangeably to refer to people, language, and culture. The exact linguistic origins of the terms are disputed, but it’s widely accepted that both originated as names of smaller tribal groups in the area. Prior to the Russian conquest of Siberia beginning in the early 1600s, these small groups lived separately, self-identifying by clan and kinship system rather than as a collective ethnic group. The Russian language has historically favored the term “Yakut,” imbuing it with political significance. Today, “Sakha” is now more commonly used by the people inside the region and “Yakut” more commonly used by the people outside.
2. There are many Sakha dialects that developed primarily due to the vast geography of the region and its history. The most district dialect “borders” are delineated by the Lena, Amga, and Aldan Rivers, which divide the Republic into four parts.
3. The following talking phrasebook uses the Central Dialect, which is commonly spoken in Yakutsk, the region’s capital city. However, Yakutsk attracts people from other regions and even countries. Thus, it is not uncommon to hear various Sakha dialects as well as Russian, Kyrgyz, Ukrainian, Armenian, and Mandarin in Yakutsk.
4. Sakha is a Turkic language, in the same family as Tatar and Uzbek. Like other Turkic languages, Sakha is agglutinative (words are formed by a stem and the addition of affixes) and uses vowel harmony. However, Sakha is unique in that it has many borrowings from Mongolian and Tungus as well as vocabulary from another, currently debated, source (possibly Paleo-Asian).
5. Long part of Russia, Sakha has borrowed heavily from Russian. Many common phrases have both traditional and Russian-borrowed versions. The Russian borrowings have generally changed somewhat in sound to match Sakha phonemic preferences, but can most often still be recognized.
6. In recent years as the Sakha language is being revitalized, there’s been a growing push for (reformist) linguistic purism and the replacement of heretofore more common Russian loanwords with “pure” Sakha words. For example, эмчит (ėmchit; “doctor”, “healer”) instead of быраас (byraas; from the Russian врач); and мэндиэмэн (mėndiėmėn; “floor”, “story”) instead of этээс (ėtėės; from the Russian этаж)
7. Sakha is an ungendered language. Nouns have no gender and there is a single pronoun (кини) for both he and she.
8. Sakha has an exceptionally rich sense of time, featuring numerous tenses that can show, for instance, how long ago something happened, if it happened once or repeatedly, if the act was finished, and more. However, verbs have no infinitive.
9. Sakha has seven cases: nominative, instrumental, ablative, comitative, dative, accusative, comparative, and partitive. Partitive is a case that denotes something without specific identity or which is part of something else. This can include, for instance, when “some of” a particular group is referred to.

Yakut (Sakha) Unique Characters

Sakha is written in a Cyrillic-based alphabet, but has five sounds not found in Russian. These are represented by the following unique characters:

Survival Basics for Yakut (Sakha) back to top

Introductions in Yakut (Sakha) back to top

Asking Directions back to top

Shopping back to top

Counting back to top

More on Sakha Dialects

Different Sakha dialects developed primarily due to geographical landscape and regions’ historical pasts. Often, dialect “borders” are delineated by rivers, e.g. the Lena, Amga, and Aldan Rivers, which divide the Republic into four parts. Modern dialectologists separate the uluses of the Sakha Republic into four major groups: Central, North-Eastern, Vilyui, and North-Western. Each group has a corresponding dialect with words and intonation features unique to it. (ulus = district/administrative units that function similarly to states in the U.S.).

• The Central dialect most closely adheres to the norms of literary Sakha in its speech and writing as the Central region is the historical wellspring of Sakha literature and high culture. The Central region includes the Amginsky, Gorny, Khangalassky, Megino-Kangalassky, Namsky, Tattinsky, Tomponsky, Ust-Aldan, and Ust-Maysky districts.
• The North-Eastern dialect is heavily influenced by neighboring peoples of the north, the Even, Yukaghir, and Chukchi, and by the Russian language. The North-Eastern dialect is spoken in the Abyysky, Allaikhovsky, Kolyma, Oymyakonsky, Verkhoyansk, and Ust-Yansky districts.
• The Vilyui dialect is distinguished in two main ways. Firstly, the speech of Vilyui inhabitants is characteristically melodic, often inserting -yi/-ui to the ends of words for a more canorous effect. Secondly, the Vilyui dialect uses unique vernacular describing agriculture and cattle and horse breeding long-established in the area. The Vilyui dialect is spoken in Lensky, Nyurbinsky, Olekminsky, Suntarsky, Verkhnevilyuysku, and Vilyuysky disctricts.
• The North-Western dialect is also greatly influenced by languages of Northern peoples, the most noticeable of which are the Tungus. In contrast to the Vilyui dialect, consonant assimilation is less developed, and there are a greater number of archaisms in the North-Western vocabulary. The North-Western dialect is spoken in the Anabar, Bulun, Olenek, and Zhigansky districts; and the Yessey region in the Krasnoyarsk Krai, a federal subject west of the Sakha Republic.

Sakha dialects are also divided, based on phonetic and lexical differences, into the Western (Vilyui and North-Western) and Eastern (Central, North-Eastern) systems of vocalism. This is most apparent in distinction of vowel labializing and non-labializing. Take for instance the word for “quiet”. In the Western system, “quiet” is written and read оргууй (orguuĭ), the o and уу (uu) are both back labialized vowels. In the Eastern system, “quiet” is written and read аргыый (argyyĭ), the a and ыы (yy) are both back non-labialized vowels. “Quiet” oргууй (orguuĭ) – аргыый (argyyĭ); “spider” ооҕуй (ooghuĭ) and ааҕый (aaghyĭ); “reed” хомус (khomus) and хамыс (khamys); “dusk” борук-сорук (boruk-soruk) and барык-сарык (baryk-saryk).

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