Language Information

Yakut is spoken in Russia's Republic of Yakutiya (capital: Yakutsk), a vast expanse of over one million square miles in north-eastern Siberia. A Turkic language, it represents the eastemmost extension of this group, having been brought here by settlers from Central Asia some 500-800 years ago. Today there are about 300,000 speakers of Yakut. ***

Russia, Yakutiya Republic.

Family: Altaic
Subgroup: Turkic

Writing Sample

Translation

If you fly on an AN-2, or "Anton" as they call the plane out here, and view from on high the village of Suokurdaakh on the left bank of the northern river, it seems to resemble ten small matchsticks tossed onto a white reindeer skin. The houses stand every which way—there are neither yards nor streets.
I spent three nights in Suokurdaakh. On the far side of the river, in the corral, many reindeer had been slaughtered. The carcasses were hung up—a way of measuring the work of the herders. I talked with the leading herders and collected some "material" for an article. On the third day of my stay in Suokurdaakh-it was a Saturday—I waited for the same "Anton," which was scheduled to arrive with the mail and on which I was to return home.

—NIKOLAI GABYSIIEV