The Sakha language/Printable version

The Sakha language

The current, editable version of this book is available in Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection, at
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Sakha_language

Permission is granted to copy, distribute, and/or modify this document under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Phonology and alphabet

Consonants

Native phonemes

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		/m/	/n/	/ɲ/	/ŋ/
Plosive	Voiceless	/p/	/t/	/c͡ç/	/k/
	Voiced	/b/	/d/	/ɟ͡ʝ/	/ɡ/
Fricative	Voiceless		/s/		/x/	/h/
	Voiced				/ɣ/
Approximants	Plain		/l/	/j/
	Nasalized			/j̃/
Flap			/ɾ/

Letter		IPA pronunciation	Closest approximation
Latin	Cyrillic
Б б	B b	bird	/b/
В в	V v	vase	/v/

Morphology notes

In Sakha, there are numerous consonant assimilations that differ by suffixes. As in /Nouns, there are also articulation of the corresponding native consonants. The definitions include:

• Sonorants: In most cases, all sonorant consonants (й, р) except nasals. The suffix form's first letter usually has voiced consonants.
• Nasals: All nasal consonants (м, н, ҥ). The suffix form's first letter usually has м or н. However I found a Chinese-language source that the plural suffix -ЛАр, for example, have the assimilated form -ҥАр after -ҥ- (тииҥ → тииҥҥар), although in fact, the nasal velar variant is almost non-existent except the Baidu Baike page and its mirrors.

Nouns

Non-possessed forms

Plurals

Unlike Turkish and other many Turkic languages, Sakha has more irregular plurals than its sisters. For example, English has irregular plural forms man — men, person — people, or child — children. Regular plurals in Sakha are formed by the surface form -ЛАр. These are the assimilated forms of this suffix:

Preceding letters	Back		Front
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
а, э, и, ы, о, ө, у, ү, л	-лар	-лор	-лэр	-лөр
й, р	-дар	-дор	-дэр	-дөр
м, н, ҥ	-нар	-нор	-нэр	-нөр
к, п, с, т, х	-тар	-тор	-тэр	-төр

In addition, there is also numerous irregular plurals in Sakha:

Assimilating nouns	Distantly related nouns	Suppleted
эмээхсин — эмээхситтэр "old woman" оҕонньор — оҕонньоттор "old man" доҕор — доҕоттор "friend" хотун — хотуттар "respectable woman" тойон — тойоттар "chief, master" Also including some other kinship terms ending in -н or -р	кыыс — кыргыттар "girl, daughter" уол — уолаттар "son, young man" эр — эрэттэр "man, husband"	киһи — дьоннор "person"

Accusative

The accusative case are used as a direct object (I see the car) of a verb or certain prepositions of verbal origin. While the divisions of the surface form -(н)И are somewhat simple, but the treatment of stems of nouns ending in a consonant is rather complex.

Preceding letters	Back		Front
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
а, э, и, ы, о, ө, у, ү	-ны	-ну	-ни	-нү
к, л, м, н, ҥ, п, р, с, т, й, х	-ы	-у	-и	-ү

Nouns ending in -с and -х usually change to -һ and -ҕ, respectively (nom. бас — acc. баһы "head"). However, nouns ending in -CVC (-C- = consonants, -V- = short close vowel) are elided to -CC- (also before other suffixes starting with a consonant) causing -һ and -ҕ devoices to -с and -х before other consonants.

In addition, there is also an accusative-collective case, used for denoting a completely-affected object (сирэйдэри "whole face"). Its formation is completely the same as accusative plural, but this case only exists in singular so there is no such forms like **сирэйдэрдэри.

Samples

Non-possessed

		ат "horse"	дьиэ "house"	ох "arrow"	үөр "herd"
Singular	Nominative	ат	дьиэ	ох	үөр
	Accusative	аты	дьиэни	оҕу	үөрү
	Collective	аттары	дьиэлэри	охтары	үөрдэри
	Partitive	атта	дьиэтэ	охта	үөрдэ
	Dative	акка	дьиэҕэ	охха	үөргэ
	Ablative	аттан	дьиэттэн	охтон	үөртэн
Plural	Nominative	аттар	дьиэлэр	охтор	үөрдэр
	Accusative	аттары	дьиэлэри	охтору	үөрдэри
	Partitive	аттарда	дьиэлэрдэ	охтордо	үөрдэрдэ
	Dative	аттарга	дьиэлэргэ	охторго	үөрдэргэ
	Ablative	аттартан	дьиэлэртэн	охтортон	үөрдэртэн