Yakut language

Yakut is a member of the Northeastern Common Turkic family of languages, which includes Shor, Tuvan and Dolgan in addition to Yakut. Like most Turkic languages, Yakut has vowel harmony, is agglutinative and has no grammatical gender. Word order is usually subject–object–verb. Yakut has been influenced by Tungusic and Mongolian languages.[5]

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, considered by some a dialect, 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.[6]

One characteristic feature of Yakut is vowel harmony. For example, if the first vowel of a Yakut 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. 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"). The hypothetical change of *s > h (debuccalization) is well known and is far from unusual, 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. [7]

Yakut is written using the Cyrillic script: the modern Yakut alphabet, established in 1939 by the Soviet Union, consists of the usual Russian characters but with five additional letters: Ҕҕ, Ҥҥ, Өө, Һһ, Үү.

The language has a highly phonemic orthography except for some dialects. While й may be pronounced as /j/ or /ȷ̃/ depending on the word, the distinction is not as relevant nowadays.

Yakut alphabet (Saxalıı suruk-biçik):

The first printing in Yakut was a part of a book by Nicolaas Witsen published in 1692 in Amsterdam.[10]

In 2005, Marianne Beerle-Moor, director of the Institute for Bible Translation, Russia/CIS, was awarded the Order of Civil Valour by the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) for the translation of the New Testament into Yakut.[11]

The Yakut 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.[12]

Article 1 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Novgorodov's alphabet 1920–1929. (Latin alphabet/IPA)	зɔn barɯta beje sltatɯgar nna bɯra:bɯgar teŋ blan try:ler. kiniler barɯ rk:n jd:q, sbasta:q blan try:ler, nna beje bejeleriger tɯlga ki:riniges bɯhɯ:lara dɔʃɔrdɔhu: tɯ:nnɯ:q blqta:q.
Latin alphabet 1929—1939. (Yañalif)	Çon вarьta вeje suoltatьgar uonna вьraaвьgar teꞑ вuolan tɵryyller. Kiniler вarь ɵrkɵn ɵjdɵɵq, suoвastaaq вuolan tɵryyller, uonna вeje вejeleriger tьlga kiiriniges вьhььlara doƣordohuu tььnnaaq вuoluoqtaaq.
Modern Cyrillic 1939—present.	Дьон барыта бэйэ суолтатыгар уонна быраабыгар тэҥ буолан төрүүллэр. Кинилэр бары өркөн өйдөөх, суобастаах буолан төрүүллэр, уонна бэйэ бэйэлэригэр тылга кииринигэс быһыылара доҕордоһуу тыыннаах буолуохтаах.
English	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.

• Yakuts
• Dolgan language
• Semyon Novgorodov – the inventor of the first IPA-based Yakut alphabet