Talk:Yakut language

naming
I propose to call the language Sakha, and have swapped the article (Yakut) and the redirect accordingly. Since our language is not widely known in the world, we have an opportunity to introduce the native name for the language to English-speaking audience, instead of the Russian name. Besides, the standardized ISO language code is sah, not yak.
 * As a native Sakha, I totally agree with this anonymous contributor and support his/her effort. Thanks. Kyraha 00:36, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree, let's swap!
 * Reverted. See the outcome of the recent move request at the bottom of this page.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 11, 2016 ; 16:52 (UTC)
 * Republic Sakha (Yakutia) notice that word "Yakutia" in brackets. Russians are used to call us "Yakut". "Yakut", "Yakutia", "Yakuti" - russian words and English Wikipedia is international and I prefer and urge you to call this language "Sakha". Unknowing person will know how true is called our nation and I don't care that there are some a nearly similar article without "h" letter. This is a problem of the user who pressed the "h" key. You have no actual rights to call this language of culture at UNESCO russian "Yakut". Reconsider your decision.--Carbongo1643 (talk) 18:43, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * P.S. I propose to rename the article and write "Sakha language, a Turkic language also known as Yakut language". What? You need a books with this naming, right? Search it, you will find it, or search "Yakut", you will find it too. Russia's Diamond Colony: The Republic of Sakha, 2000 John Tichotsky, for example. But ofcourse you need the authoritative publication! The more bearded man, the more he is right or what?--Carbongo1643 (talk) 19:06, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This is not my decision; it is what the consensus currently is. As you can see, the move request you initiated is still ongoing at the bottom of this very page, and you, as any other editor, are welcome to participate and to put your arguments forward in that section, where others can see them. I personally, however, do find it ironic that in trying to establish how your language is to be called you are trying to impose your views on the speakers of a different language (namely, English), which is the exact same thing you are accusing to be done to you. There is no one "correct" variant here; both "Sakha" and "Yakut" are correct, and the latter is only used as a title because in English it is far more common (this is the English edition of Wikipedia, do not forget that). When the situation changes, Wikipedians will be more than happy to reconsider this decision. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 19, 2016 ; 13:25 (UTC)

Sakha Wikipedia!!!!
There should be a Wikipedia in this language!--Fox Mccloud 15:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree. Straughn

This language is Turkish. Wikipedia is already in Turkish. They can read Wikipedia in Turkish language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.177.23.155 (talk) 18:19, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * By the same logic, we can delete English Wikipedia, since there is already German Wikipedia.
 * (Note that the difference between Turkic and Turkish parallels the one between Germanic and German. While Turkic languages are all relatively similar to each other, with the exceptions of only Chuvash being strongly divergent and Sakha/Dolgan appreciably divergent, that doesn't mean even native speakers of other Turkic languages, let alone Sakha, can be expected to understand Turkish without study, both because of the script and spelling and more importantly because of the great differences in vocabulary. See Talk:Turkic languages.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:37, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

In-Situ vs. In-Site
The correct term for question words that do not move is in-situ, not in-site. I'm going to change back the edit made by the anonymous contributor. Straughn 15:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Place Names, Personal Names
I'm going to remove the citation needed by the 'used only in Russian loan words' bit in the alphabet section. It seems to me that place names and personal names are spelled as in Russian in order to conform to official standards. Per Krueger, Russian-specific letters are used only in Russian loans, regardless of whether they're proper nouns or common nouns. Straughn 14:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for clarification. I seem to have indeed confused genuine Sakha names with their Russian normalizations (which heavily rely on the letter "ё").  Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem. I know in some instances the Russian transliteration of non-Russian words will use ё for the /ø/ sound and ю for the /y/ sound. Straughn 19:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Speaking of which, you wouldn't by any chance have the actual guidelines for normalization of the Sakha language into Russian on hand? I remember once seeing the 1970s geodesic and mapping guidelines just for that, but I'm unable to find them online (I doubt they are even available online; plus I'm not sure what they are called).  Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid not. I just base what I know about transliteration in Russian on Russian place names that I recognize as being Sakha. Straughn 20:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem. I just thought I'd ask.  Thanks anyway!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:53, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Sakha Scouting
Can someone render Belem Buol (Be Prepared), the Scout Motto, into Sakha script? Thanks! Chris 20:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Бэлэм буол --Saaska (talk) 15:42, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Sakha alphabet
The names of the letters are Komi alphabet... It should be edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.35.120.43 (talk) 12:46, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. — N-true (talk) 16:05, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Demographics
We have a link to a .xls spreadsheet which claims that the 2002 census recorded 443,852 people with "knowledge of Yakut". SIL Ethnologue reports that as of 1993, there were 363,000 first-language speakers. I can only assume that the 2002 figure, if factual, includes second-language speakers.

The Sakha Republic has a population of about 1 million. Of these, roughly half are ethnic Yakuts. It would seem that of these, about 360,000 remain first-language speakers of Yakut/Sakha, while the remainder, about 100,000 people, are first-language Russian speakers most of whom retain some knowledge of Yakut/Sakha as a second language. --dab (𒁳) 17:09, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The ".xls spreadsheet" is actually the official results of the 2002 Census (with perepis2002.ru being the official website where the Census results were published). However, the 456,288 number includes the speakers across the whole country, not just in the Sakha Republic, and, as per the Census methodology, it includes all people who self-identified as speakers of Sakha (i.e., their knowledge claim was recorded but not tested or verified). This, of course, would inflate the overall number somewhat, but at any rate it is not meant to be the measure of "first-language" speakers (and I wish the Infobox language template's documentation were more specific as to what kind of number is expected in the "speakers" field). I'd say we should report both numbers in the article, with the caveats footnoted. Figuring out which number is "better" should be left to the readers, because us doing it would be a textbook example of synthesis. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 4, 2011; 18:57 (UTC)

Uber die Sprache der Jakuten
Uber die Sprache der Jakuten, Theil 1: Einleitung. Jakutisceer Text. Jakutische Grammatik. (1851)

https://archive.org/details/rosettaproject_sah_morsyn-1

Uber die Sprache der Jakuten, Theil 2: Jakutisch-Deutsches Worterbuch (1851)

https://archive.org/details/rosettaproject_sah_vocab-1

Rajmaan (talk) 03:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Yakut Genesis Translation
Yakut Genesis Translation

https://archive.org/details/rosettaproject_sah_gen-1

Rajmaan (talk) 03:46, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 21 September 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved. EdJohnston (talk) 03:23, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Sakha language → Yakut language – Per WP:COMMONNAME: Usage in the literature is mixed, but "Yakut" is the ISO name as well as the name used in Ethnologue, Glottolog, and Linguist List. Johanson & Csató The Turkic Languages (Routledge Language Family Descriptions, 1998, 2003, 2015) uses "Yakut", noting that Sakha is the endonym. Per Ngram, "Yakut" remains the more common name even after the change in the name of the republic. Also, the ethnographic article is at Yakuts, and per MOS:LANG these should use the same name. (Also Yakutian cattle, Yakutian horse.) — kwami (talk) 18:35, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. Per WP:COMMONNAME.  --Taivo (talk) 18:42, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The explanation above convinces me; thanks. Support.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 21, 2015 ; 18:52 (UTC)
 * Neutral → Support per kwami's arguments. --JorisvS (talk) 18:59, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. Khestwol (talk) 20:10, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Support - per list of reasons given by kwami, and per ngram. — Abrahamic Faiths (talk) 20:43, 21 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 13 January 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved due to no rational provided to overturn prior consensus, and lack of support from the discussion below. Effectively a SNOW close. Tiggerjay (talk) 02:04, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Yakut language → Sakha language – Since Wikipedia nowadays is an authoritative source, we (sakhalar) require you to change the name of article. Carbongo1643 (talk) 05:52, 13 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose since no coherent rationale reflecting WP:TITLE has been presented, and since the proposed title appears to go against MOS:CAPS.  Dicklyon (talk) 06:43, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. A request to move the article back must at the very least address the points from the previous move request; I see none of that here. If there is evidence that "Sakha" is the most common way to refer to this language in English, evidence which had previously been overlooked, by all means bring it up, otherwise this is just a frivolous proposal with no substance.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 13, 2016 ; 13:08 (UTC)
 * Oppose no evidence provided. No credentials provided either. WP:OFFICIALNAME use the common name in English, not the official one. WP:USEENGLISH Please show the proposed name is the common name as it is used in English (as opposed to Russian or natively) -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 05:32, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose The article ("...also known as Sakha,...") and the Sakha language redirect recognizes the alternative of Sakha. Yakut (2.02 million hits) comes up more than Sakha (1.27 m) on Google. Using common sense, having the article at Yakut over Sakha makes it less confusing with the unrelated (but properly disambig. notes) Saka language. Spshu (talk) 00:02, 15 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Yakuts which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Practical transliteration of Yakut/Saqa language
Hello, Christian230102 and 5.197.251.205! I would like to explain behind the last revocation of amendments by anonymous user. The proposed transliteration system for the Yakut language is not suitable for practical use because many aspects of the Yakut orthography are not taken into account.

In particular, the proposed system transmits by letters the Yakut alphabet from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, but not takes into account the presence of diphthongs. It is also scarce graphically, which can lead to elementary reading confusion. In particular, the Cyrillic letters "ы" and "й" are transmitted by one Latin letter "y".

And here, according to the proposed system, how the individual words would be written:

Айыы Ayyy (God); Кыайыы Kyayyy (victory); Ый Yy (moon); Ыйыы Yyyy (indication; prescription) and etc. The list goes on and on.

Also, this system would transfer diphthongs like this, and in particular the diphthong "ыа" as "ya".

in general, the English transliteration system is poorly suited for the transmission of the Yakut language. I doubt very much that the creators of this system took into account these problems.--Modun (talk) 08:56, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

First of all give a source,I have provided it. You can't just make stuff up.And second your opinion is not ultimate, there are many ways of transliterating.BGN/PCGN is more valid than opinion of some rando.You are not the head of Yakutia.If you don't like this romanization use ISO or different recognized standard 5.197.251.205 (talk) 11:12, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I think I have already sufficiently explained the shortcomings of the system that you brought. Well, it's not for you to talk about the opinion of "some kind of random" creating anonymous edits from the ip-address. And that transliteration system from the practical point of view is more suitable for transliteration because it is devoid of the indicated drawbacks. In addition, it is universal for the Turkic languages. Since it was created with an emphasis on these languages.--Modun (talk) 11:27, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry for sounding rude, but this is what I wanted for the whole time, a source. I guess we found a compromise. Have a great day 5.197.251.205 (talk) 12:53, 27 September 2021 (UTC)


 * This KNAB system is not by any means a "mainstream" Romanization; I have never seen any scholarly work which uses it. Some of the decisions it makes are perplexing, for example Х as . Х alternates between a uvular stop [], a voiceless uvular fricative [], and a voiceless velar fricative [].  Using  for this results in the by-no-means infrequent character Һ [] having to be provided a diacritic <ḩ>.  Moreover, this source doesn't explain how to transcribe long vowels.  I propose that we adopt one of the more mainstream systems.  Mainly for my own use I created this correspondence table which compares the different Romanizations.  Personally I'd say that the Krueger (1962) or the Robeets & Savalyev (2020) systems are most reasonable.--Biktor627(User talk:Biktor627)

Vowel harmony system needs more explanation
I marked the Vowel harmony section for expansion. Within Turkic languages, Sakha vowel harmony is doubly interesting: it involves rounding harmony of low vowel (unlike all other Turkic languages), and Sakha has diphthongs which harmonize based on the first vowel of the diphthong. I'm happy to write the section on vowel harmony when I have some free time. (User talk:Biktor627) 22:59 EST, 22 March 2022 — Preceding undated comment added 03:02, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The first draft has been completed. It needs some cleaning up, but it's a start. Biktor627 (talk) 05:22, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Phonemes are transcribed way too narrowly--need a citation
I cannot find a source that states that the дь is a palatal affricate //, nor that ч is //. This is a rather narrow level of phonetic detail for there to be no citation given. They are typically described as alveo-palatal affricates [] and [], which are (unfortunately quite Anglocentrically) considered to be the broader transcription of post-alveolar affricates.Biktor627 (talk) 02:22, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * re this issue, this extends also to the vowels, specifically the diphthongs, which are transcribed as, , , and . While this, to my ear, seems to be accurate to how they are pronounced (with the caveat that speakers I've talked with do not produce [], but rather []), such an incredible degree of precision needs a citation.  I have opted to use a narrower transcription in the vowel section, though I left the original in an HTML comment. Biktor627 (talk) 19:51, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Considering proposing yet another Move Yakut language -> Sakha language
At risk of getting on everybody's nerves, I'm considering proposing another Move request to change the name of the article from Yakut language to Sakha language, but I'm undecided. Before doing so, I'd value some conversation about it.


 * 1) Points in favor of changing to Sakha
 * 2) Sakha is the endonym, and is the name used by native Sakha linguists when discussing the language in English.
 * 3) | glottolog uses Sakha.
 * 4) The iso 639-3 code is sah
 * 5) In recent years, the name Sakha seems to be picking up steam, actually overtaking Yakut.  You can see this on the following Ngrams:
 * 6) | Ngram for Yakut language vs. Sakha language
 * 7) | Ngram for Sakha vs. Yakut
 * 8) | Ngram for Sakha people vs. Yakut people
 * 9) A potential counterargument, that because Yakut is the previously most-common name, if you choose to use Sakha you still have to specify Yakut for those who don't know.  However, this argument holds no weight, as it's essentially the same as what we have now: it's either Sakha (aka Yakut) or Yakut (aka Sakha).
 * 10) Linguistics literature in the past two or so decades has converged on plain Sakha or Sakha (Yakut) (unfortunately difficult to sort google scholar as it doesn't allow you to sort by citations)
 * 11) Points in favor of keeping the name as Yakut
 * 12) | WALS uses Yakut (though it also considers it Altaic it so take that as you will 😉)))
 * 13) English-language Turkologists tend to use Yakut, though the reason given is not always strong.  For example, in the 2021 edition of Johanson and Csató's handbook The Turkic Languages, they choose Yakut over Sakha for the following reason:
 * 14) "Given the considerable and confusing variation in the practices of writing names of Turkic peoples and languages, the forms of those names have been unified, e.g. Kirghiz instead of Kyrgyz, Azeri instead of Azerbaijanian or Azerbaijani, and Yakut instead of Sakha." (p. xvii, frontmatter)
 * 15) (my take:)Indeed, naming practices in Turkic languages is confusing (Füyü Kyrgyz is not a dialect of Kyrgyz; Old Uyghur is not the direct ancestor of modern Uyghur), but Sakha versus Yakut are really not really on a par with things like Kyrgyz vs. Kirghiz, Azeri and all its variants: Sakha vs. Yakut it is not a morphological or spelling variant, but are rather entirely different root.
 * 16) Some Ngrams aren't as clear cut as the above:
 * 17) | Sakha word versus Yakut word just baaarely has Sakha winning in recent years
 * 18) | Sakha grammar versus Yakut grammar, there are no hits for Sakha grammar
 * 19) Points I'm not sure about
 * 20) Yakut does not appear to be pejorative, unlike some other exonyms.  Nevertheless, it seems that Sakha seem to suggest that using an exonym partially overwrites their identity (simply review some of the other exchanges on this talk page).
 * 21) Sakha and Yakut are actually cognates historically (see Sakha).
 * 22) Names like Yakutian knife, Yakutian cattle, Yakutian horse.  I don't think this really matters, but it's a point.

I'd love to get some discussion going about this.Biktor627 (talk) 07:17, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Māori translation
This page has been translated into Māori and the translated page needs to be linked: https://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reo_H%C4%81kuti Thomas Norren (talk) 09:30, 23 September 2022 (UTC)


 * done Thomas Norren (talk) 21:56, 26 September 2022 (UTC)