The Yakut language differs from all other Turkic languages in the presence of a layer of vocabulary of unclear origin (possibly Paleo-Siberian). There is also a large number of words of Mongolian origin related to ancient borrowings, as well as numerous recent borrowings from Russian. Like other Turkic languages and their ancestor Proto-Turkic, Yakut is an agglutinative language and features vowel harmony.
Historically, Yakut left the community of Common Turkic speakers relatively early.[4] Due to this, it diverges in many ways from other Turkic languages and mutual intelligibility between Yakut and other Turkic languages is low.[5] Nevertheless, Yakut contains many features which are important for the reconstruction of Proto-Turkic, such as the preservation of long vowels.[6]
Geographic distribution
Yakut is spoken mainly in the Sakha Republic. It is also used by ethnic Yakuts 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 Yakut, which formerly was considered by some a dialect of Yakut,[7] is spoken by Dolgans in Krasnoyarsk Region. Yakut 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.[8]
Yakut has the following consonants phonemes,[9] where the IPA value is provided in slashes '//' and the native script value is provided in bold followed by the romanization in parentheses.
The nasal glide /ȷ̃/ is not distinguished from /j/ in the orthography, where both are written as ⟨й⟩. Thus айыы can be ayïï[ajɯː] 'deed, creation, work' or aỹïï[aȷ̃ɯː] 'sin, transgression.'[10] The nasal glide /ȷ̃/ has a very restricted distribution, appearing in very few words.[11]
/ɾ/ is pronounced as a flap /ɾ/ between vowels, e.g. орон (oron) [oɾon] 'place', and as a trill at the end of words, e.g. тур (tur) [tur] 'stand'.[12][13]
/ɾ/ does not occur at the beginning of words in native Yakut words; borrowed Russian words with onset /ɾ/ are usually rendered with an epenthetic vowel, e.g. Russian рама (rama) > Yakut араама (araama) 'frame'.
Yakut is in many ways phonologically unique among the Turkic languages. Yakut and the closely related Dolgan language are the only Turkic languages without hushing sibilants. Additionally, no known Turkic languages other than Yakut and Khorasani Turkic have the palatal nasal /ɲ/.
Consonant assimilation
Consonants at morpheme boundaries undergo extensive assimilation, both progressive and regressive.[14][15] All suffixes possess numerous allomorphs. For suffixes which begin with a consonant, the surface form of the consonant is conditioned on the stem-final segment. There are four such archiphonemic consonants: G, B, T, and L. Examples of each are provided in the following table for the suffixes -GIt (second-person plural possessive suffix, oɣoɣut 'your [pl.] child'), -BIt (first-person plural possessive suffix, oɣobut, 'our child'), -TA (partitive case suffix, tiiste 'some teeth'), -LArA (third-person plural possessive suffix, oɣoloro 'their child'). Note that the alternation in the vowels is governed by vowel harmony (see the main article and the below section).
There is an additional regular morphophonological pattern for [t]-final stems: they assimilate in place of articulation with an immediately following labial or velar. For example at 'horse' > akkït 'your [pl.] horse', > appït 'our horse'.
Debuccalization
Yakut initial s- corresponds to initial h- in Dolgan and played an important operative rule in the development of proto-Yakut, ultimately resulting in initial Ø- < *h- < *s- (example: Dolgan huoq and Yakut suox, both meaning "not").[clarification needed] The historical change of *s > h, known as debuccalization, is a common sound-change across the world's languages, being characteristic of such languages as Greek and Indo-Iranian in their development from Proto-Indo-European, as well as such Turkic languages as Bashkir, e.g. höt 'milk' < *süt.[16]Debuccalization of /s/ to /h/ is also found as a diachronic change from Proto-Celtic to Brittonic, and has actually become a synchronic grammaticalised feature called lenition in the related Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish, and Manx).
Debuccalization is also an active phonological process in modern Yakut. Intervocalically the phoneme /s/ becomes [h]. For example the /s/ in кыыс (kïïs) 'girl' becomes [h] between vowels:[17]
a.
kïïs
girl
>
>
kïïh-ïm
girl-POSS.1SG
kïïs > kïïh-ïm
girl > girl-POSS.1SG
'girl; daughter' > 'my daughter'
Vowels
Yakut has twenty phonemic vowels: eight short vowels, eight long vowels,[a] and four diphthongs. The following table give broad transcriptions for each vowel phoneme,[b] as well as the native script bold and romanization in italics:
^The long vowel phonemes /eː/, /ɔː/, and /øː/ appear in very few words and are thus considered marginal phonemes.[18]
^Note that these vowels are extremely broad. Narrower transcriptions[19] transcribe the high back non-front vowel ы as central /ɨ/. The front non-high unrounded open vowel in э, ээ, and иэ are more accurately [ɛ], [ɛː], [iɛ], respectively.
^Some authors romanize long vowels with a macron (e.g. /iː/ ī, /yː/ ǖ)[5] or with a colon (e.g. /iː/ i:/iː, /yː/, ü:/üː).[23]
Vowel harmony
Like other Turkic languages, a characteristic feature of Yakut is progressive vowel harmony. Most root words obey vowel harmony, for example in кэлин (kelin) 'back', all the vowels are front and unrounded. Yakut's vowel harmony in suffixes is the most complex system in the Turkic family.[24] Vowel harmony is an assimilation process where vowels in one syllable take on certain features of vowels in the preceding syllable. In Yakut, subsequent vowels all take on frontness and all non-low vowels take on lip rounding of preceding syllables' vowels.[25] There are two main rules of vowel harmony:
Frontness/backness harmony:
Front vowels are always followed by front vowels.
Back vowels are always followed by back vowels.
Rounding harmony:
Unrounded vowels are always followed by unrounded vowels.
Close rounded vowels always occur after close rounded vowels.
Open unrounded vowels do not assimilate in rounding with close rounded vowels.
The quality of the diphthongs /ie, ïa, uo, üö/ for the purposes of vowel harmony is determined by the first segment in the diphthong. Taken together, these rules mean that the pattern of subsequent syllables in Yakut is entirely predictable, and all words will follow the following pattern:[26] Like the consonant assimilation rules above, suffixes display numerous allomorphs determined by the stem they attach to. There are two archiphoneme vowelsI (an underlyingly high vowel) and A (an underlyingly low vowel).
Yakut vowel harmony
Category
Final vowel in stem
Suffix vowels
Unrounded, back
a, aa, ï, ïï, ïa
a, aa, ï, ïï, ïa
Unrounded, front
e, ee, i, ii, ie
e, ee, i, ii, ie
Rounded back
u, uu, uo
a, aa, u, uu, uo
Rounded, front, close
ü, üü, üö
e, ee, ü, üü, üö
Rounded, back
o, oo
o, oo, u, uu, uo
Rounded, open, low
ö, öö
ö, öö, ü, üü, üö
Vowel harmony of archiphonemic vowels
Archiphonemic vowel
Preceding vowel
Front
Back
unrounded (i, ii, ie, e, ee)
rounded
unrounded (ï, ïï, ïa, a, aa)
rounded
high (ü, üü, üö)
low (ö, öö)
high (u, uu, uo)
low (o, oo)
I
i
ü
ï
u
A
e
ö
a
o
Examples of I can be seen in the first-person singular possessive agreement suffix -(I)m:[27] as in (a):
a.
aat-ïm
name-POSS.1SG
aat-ïm
name-POSS.1SG
'my name'
et-im
meat-POSS.1SG
et-im
meat-POSS.1SG
'my meat'
uol-um
son-POSS.1SG
uol-um
son-POSS.1SG
'my son'
üüt-üm
milk-POSS.1SG
üüt-üm
milk-POSS.1SG
'my milk'
The underlyingly low vowel phoneme A is represented through the third-person singular agreement suffix -(t)A[28] in (b):
After three earlier phases of development, Yakut is currently written using the Cyrillic script: the modern Yakut alphabet, established in 1939 by the Soviet Union, consists of all the Russian characters with five additional letters for phonemes not present in Russian: Ҕҕ, Ҥҥ, Өө, Һһ, Үү, as follows:
Long vowels are represented through the doubling of vowels, e.g. үүт (üüt) /yːt/ 'milk,' a practice that many scholars follow in Romanizations of the language.[29][30][31]
The full Yakut alphabet contains letters for consonant phonemes not present in native words (and thus not indicated in the phonology tables above): the letters В/v/, Е /(j)e/, Ё /jo|/, Ж/ʒ/, З/z/, Ф/f/, Ц/t͡s/, Ш/ʃ/, Щ/ɕː/, Ъ, Ю /ju/, Я /ja/ are used exclusively in Russian loanwords. In addition, in native Yakut words, the soft sign⟨Ь⟩ is used exclusively in the digraphs ⟨дь⟩ and ⟨нь⟩.
Transliteration
There are numerous conventions for the Romanization of Yakut. Bibliographic sources and libraries typically use the ALA-LC Romanization tables for non-Slavic languages in Cyrillic script.[32] Linguists often employ Turkological standards for transliteration,[33] or a mixture of Turkological standards and the IPA.[22] In addition, others employ Turkish orthography.[34] Comparison of some of these systems can be seen in the following:
Although nouns have no gender, 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.[39]
Grammatical number
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.
The last word, кыргыттар, disregarding the composite -(ы)ттар plural suffix, has cognates in numerous Turkic languages, such as Uzbek (qirqin 'bondwoman'), Bashkir, Tatar, Kyrgyz (кыз-кыркын 'girls'), Chuvash (хӑрхӑм), Turkmen (gyrnak) and extinct Qarakhanid, Khwarezmian and Chaghatay.
Cases
Only Sakha (Yakut) has a rich case system that differs markedly from all the other Siberian Turkic languages. It has retained the ancient comitative case from Old Turkic (due to strong influence from Mongolian) while in other Turkic languages, the old comitative has become an instrumental case. However, in Sakha language the Old Turkic locative case has come to denote partitive case, thus leaving no case form for the function of locative. Instead, locative, dative and allative cases are realized through Common Turkic dative suffix. Furthermore, (in addition to locative,) genitive and equative cases are lost as well. Yakut has eight grammatical cases: nominative (unmarked), accusative-(n)I, dative-GA, partitive-TA, ablative-(t)tan, instrumental-(I)nAn, comitative-LIIn, and comparative-TAAɣAr.[40] Examples of these are shown in the following table for a vowel-final stem eye (of Mongolian origin) 'peace' and a consonant-final stem uot 'fire':
^Sakha partitive suffix is believed by some linguists to be an innovation stemming from the influence of Evenki which led the Old Turkic locative suffix to assume partitive function in Sakha; no other Turkic language has partitive suffix save for Khalaj and (nearly-extinct) Tofa.[41] Sakha partitive is similar to the corresponding Finnish partitive case.[42]
^The Ablative suffix appears as -TAn following a consonant and -TTAn following a vowel. Clear examples of the former are ox 'arrow' → oxton 'from an/the arrow', oxtorton 'from (the) arrows'.
The partitive object case indicates that just a part of an object is affected, e.g.:
Uː-ta
water-PTV
is!
drink-IMP.2SG
Uː-ta is!
water-PTV drink-IMP.2SG
Drink some water!
The corresponding expression below with the object in the accusative denotes wholeness:
Uː-nu
water-ACC.
is!
drink-IMP.2SG
Uː-nu is!
water-ACC. drink-IMP.2SG
Drink [all] the water!
The partitive is only used in imperative or necessitative expressions, e.g.
Uː-ta
water-PT
a-γal-ϊaχ-χa
bring-PRO-DAT
naːda.
necessary.
Uː-ta a-γal-ϊaχ-χa naːda.
water-PT bring-PRO-DAT necessary.
One has to bring some water.
Note the word naːda is borrowed from Russian надо (must).
A notable detail about Yakut case is the absence of the genitive,[43] a feature which some argue is due to historical contact with Evenki (a Tungusic language), the language with which Sakha (i.e. Yakut) was in most intensive contact.[44] Possessors are unmarked, with the possessive relationship only being realized on the possessed noun itself either through the possessive suffix[45] (if the subject is a pronoun) or through partitive case suffix (if the subject is any other nominal). For example, in (a) the first-person pronoun subjects are not marked for genitive case; neither do full nominal subjects (possessors) receive any marking, as shown in (b):
a.
min
1SG.NOM
oɣo-m
child-POSS.1SG
/
/
bihigi
1PL.NOM
oɣo-but
child-POSS.1PL
min oɣo-m / bihigi oɣo-but
1SG.NOM child-POSS.1SG / 1PL.NOM child-POSS.1PL
'my son' / 'our child'
b.
Masha
Masha.NOM
aɣa-ta
father-PTV.3SG
Masha aɣa-ta
Masha.NOM father-PTV.3SG
'Masha's father'
Questions
The Sakha yes–no question marker is enclitic duo or du:, whereas almost all other Turkic languages use markers of the type -mI, compare:
Күөрэгэй
kyœregej
lark-NOM
ырыатын
ïrïa-tï-n
song-3SG.POSS-ACC
истэҕин
ist-e-ɣin
hear-PRS-2SG
дуо?
=duo?
=Q
Күөрэгэй ырыатын истэҕин дуо?
kyœregej ïrïa-tï-n ist-e-ɣin =duo?
lark-NOM song-3SG.POSS-ACC hear-PRS-2SG =Q
Do you hear the song of larks?
and the same sentence in Uzbek (note the question suffix -mi in contrast to Sakha):
To’rg’ay jirini eshit(a)yapsanmi?
Question words in Yakut remain in-situ; they do not move to the front of the sentence. Sample question words include: туох (tuox) 'what', ким (kim) 'who', хайдах (xajdax) 'how', хас (xas) 'how much; how many', ханна (xanna) 'where', and ханнык (xannïk) 'which'.
Vocabulary
Sakha has a large number of Mongolian loanwords, representing around 13% of its vocabulary (including terms pertaining to kinship and body parts). Despite the close contact with Evenki, Sakha has quite a small number of loanwords from that language.
The Yakut have a tradition of oral epic in their language called Олоҥхо ("Olonkho"), traditionally performed by skilled performers. The subject matter is based on Yakut mythology and legends. Versions of many Olonkho poems have been written down and translated since the 19th century, but only a very few older performers of the oral 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.[46]
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
^Robin Harris. 2012. Sitting "under the mouth": decline and revitalization in the Sakha epic tradition "Olonkho". Doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia.
Anderson, Gregory D. S. (1998). "Historical Aspects of Yakut (Saxa) Phonology". Turkic Languages. 2 (2): 1–32.
Antonov, N. K. (1997). Tenshev, E. R. (ed.). Yazyki mira (seriya knig) (in Russian). Indrik (izdatelstvo). pp. 513–524. ISBN5-85759-061-2.
Baker, Mark C; Vinokurova, Nadya (2010). "Two modalities of case assignment: case in Sakha". Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. 28 (3): 593–642. doi:10.1007/s11049-010-9105-1. S2CID18614663.
Forsyth, James (1994). A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581-1990. Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521477710.
Johanson, Lars (2021). Turkic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 20, 24.
Kharitonov, L. N. (1947). Samouchitel' jakutskogo jazyka (in Russian). Jakutskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo.
Kirişçioğlu, M. Fatih (1999). Saha (Yakut) Türkçesi Grameri (in Turkish). Ankara: Türk Dil Kurumu. ISBN975-16-0587-3.
Krueger, John R. (1962). Yakut Manual. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Robbeets, Martine; Savalyev, Alexander (2020). "Romanization Conventions". In Robbeets, Martine; Savalyev, Alexander (eds.). The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages. Oxford University Press. pp. lii–lxxxii.
Pakendorf, Brigitte (2007). Contact in the prehistory of the Sakha (Yakuts): Linguistic and genetic perspectives (Thesis). Universiteit Leiden.
Pakendorf, Brigitte; Stapert, Eugénie (2020). "Sakha and Dolgan, the North Siberian Turkic Languages". In Robbeets, Martine; Savalyev, Alexander (eds.). The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages. Oxford University Press. pp. 430–45. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198804628.003.0027. ISBN978-0-19-880462-8.
Petrova, Nyurguyana (2011). Lexicon and Clause-Linkage Properties of the Converbal Constructions in Sakha (Yakut) (Thesis). University of Buffalo.
Stachowski, Marek; Menz, Astrid (1998). "Yakut". In Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Á. (eds.). The Turkic Languages. Routledge.
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