Саха Тыла үөрэн! Learn Sakha!

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 16 Oct 2013 00:55

Дорообо! Саха Тыла эn үөrэnүөҥ!

Hello! I will teach you the Sakha Language.

Overview:

Sakha or Yakut is a language spoken by the Sakha people in the Sakha Region of Siberia, Russia. They are a Turkic people that possess Asiatic features and originally came from the Lake Baikal Area.

Invasions by the Mongols made them go north, and subsequent invasions by the Buryats (another Mongolic people) made them go even more north, resulting in their current location. Their location was previously inhabited by various Tungus peoples such as the Evens and Evenks and the Sakha language has now become a lingua franca for the Dolgans, Evenks and Yukaghirs.

Lesson 1: Phonology

Consonants

Nasal m(м) n(н) ɲ(нь) ŋ(ҥ)
Plosive p(п) b(б) t(т) d(д) c(ч) ɟ(дь) k(к) ɡ(г)
Fricative s(с) x(х) ɣ(ҕ) h(һ)
Approximant l(л) j, ȷ̃ (й)
Tap ɾ(р)

Vowels

There are 16 vowels (8 short and 8 long) + 4 Diphthongs:

Front Unrounded i(и) e(э) iː eː ie (иэ)
Front Rounded y(ү) ø(ө) yː øː yø (үө)
Back Unrounded ɯ(ы) a(а) ɯː aː ɯa (ыа)
Back Rounded u(у) o(о) uː oː uo (уо)

Alphabet

The language is written in the Cyrillic Script and adds 5 letters to it: Ҕҕ, Ҥҥ, Өө, Һһ, Үү.

The Cyrillic letters: Вв, Ее, Ёё, Жж, Зз, Фф, Цц, Шш, Щщ, Ъъ, Ю ю, Я я are only found in Russian loanwords.
The letters Ьь appear in дь and нь, but apart from that, they are only found in Russian loanwords.

Questions:

1) Convert түспүт саамыр into IPA
2) Convert суоллар уһун into IPA
3) Convert /min kyølge baɾdɯm/ into Sakha Orthography.
4) Convert /ytylyge suox taxsɯma/ into Sakha Orthography.

Ambrisio · Post by **Ambrisio** » 16 Oct 2013 03:01

үөrэnүөҥ

Do you have a Cyrillic keyboard?

Spoiler:

Nice! I'm looking forward to more lessons.
And with words like "ütülüge" there just has to be vowel harmony! Unless the Yakutians are just plain obsessed with the letter Ü.

Phonology

The vowel inventory is very similar to Turkish, as expected. But the consonantal inventory is kind of odd -- no labial fricatives, and a palatal series. (The fricative inventory is almost like my conlang Proto-Ginösic, which has /s z χ ʁ h/!) Is it then true that all Turkish words with the letter V or Z are borrowings?

дь

So how would you write /ɟa/, for example? Is it дьа or дя?

kanejam · Post by **kanejam** » 16 Oct 2013 05:04

Spoiler:

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 16 Oct 2013 10:17

Ambrisio wrote:
үөrэnүөҥ
Do you have a Cyrillic keyboard?

Spoiler:
/tyspyt sa:mɯr/
/suol:ar uhun/
мин күөлгэ бардым
үтүлүгэ суох тахсыма
Nice! I'm looking forward to more lessons.
And with words like "ütülüge" there just has to be vowel harmony! Unless the Yakutians are just plain obsessed with the letter Ü.

Phonology
The vowel inventory is very similar to Turkish, as expected. But the consonantal inventory is kind of odd -- no labial fricatives, and a palatal series. (The fricative inventory is almost like my conlang Proto-Ginösic, which has /s z χ ʁ h/!) Is it then true that all Turkish words with the letter V or Z are borrowings?

дь
So how would you write /ɟa/, for example? Is it дьа or дя?

My iPad has a cyrillic keyboard but I use a latin to cyrillic converter and then manually add the letters that are unique to Sakha.

I didn't explicitly state about how to form long vowels. Might cover that in Lesson 2.

The word <ütülüge> is compromised of the noun <ütülü> and locative case suffix <ge>. (in gloves)
Yeah, the vowel inventory is near enough identical to Turkish, but yeah, v's and f's are nowhere to be seen. There are some words in Turkish such as rüzgar and zevk that come from Persian and Arabic. I wouldn't necessarily state that it's 100% true as the word for "there is" is <баар> and in Turkish it's <var>.

/ɟa/ is written as дьа. The letter <я> is only found in Russian Borrowings.

I will be possibly providing some audio, as audio for Sakha is extremely scarce and I may provide a Turkic Latinisation additionally too.

Answers

Ambrisio, Q2 is incorrect.

Spoiler:

Kanejam, Q1 and Q3 are incorrect.

Spoiler:

In Lesson 3, I will post the answers to Lessons 1, 2 and 3.

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 16 Oct 2013 13:03

Lesson 2a: Long Vowels

Just to make it clear to everyone, long vowels are indicated in words which duplicate the vowel. For example the word <баар> has a long vowel. This is similar to how it's shown in the Estonian orthography such as in the word <tuul> (wind).

Lesson 2b: Plurals

Sakha nouns, in the plural can have up to 16 forms. That's right, 16! But don't worry, it's very easy to learn!

If you're familiar with the plural construction in Turkish ( <lar> (лар) and <ler> (лэр) for back and front vowels) , Sakha takes it one step further, additionally adding <lör> (лөр) and <lor> (лор).

The full set of plurals are:

'L' Group:
лар, лэр, лор, лөр

'D' Group:
дар, дэр, дор, дөр

'T' Group:
тар, тэр, тор, төр

'N' Group:
нар, нэр, нор, нөр

----------------------------
----------------------------
----------------------------
How to correctly add the plural to the noun...

Here are some nouns and we will see what plural ending needs to be added to it.

тыал (tıal) : wind
моҕотой (moğotoy): chipmunk
bөдөҥ (bödöñ): strong
тиис (tiis): tooth

For the L group, we need to see if the noun ends in a vowel, diphthong or /l/:
If it is, then we need to assess if the vowel is:
a) back except /o/
b) front except /ø/
c) /o/ only
d) /ø/ only

If a, then add <лар>
If b, then add <лэр>
If c, then add <лор>
If d, then add <лөр>

For the D group, we need to see if the noun ends in /j/ or /ɾ/

If it is, then we need to assess if the vowel is:
a) back except /o/
b) front except /ø/
c) /o/ only
d) /ø/ only

If a, then add <дар>
If b, then add <дэр>
If c, then add <дор>
If d, then add <дөр>

For the T group, we need to see if the noun ends in unvoiced consonants ( / p t k s x / )

If it is, then we need to assess if the vowel is:
a) back except /o/
b) front except /ø/
c) /o/ only
d) /ø/ only

If a, then add <тар>
If b, then add <тэр>
If c, then add <тор>
If d, then add <төр>

Finally, for the N group, we need to see if the noun ends in nasals /m n ŋ/

If it is, then we need to assess if the vowel is:
a) back except /o/
b) front except /ø/
c) /o/ only
d) /ø/ only

If a, then add <нар>
If b, then add <нэр>
If c, then add <нор>
If d, then add <нөр>

----------------------------
----------------------------
----------------------------

Questions:

1) Convert the nouns provided to their plural form.

Ambrisio · Post by **Ambrisio** » 16 Oct 2013 18:23

Spoiler:

16!

20922789888000 plural forms? That's just way too big.

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 16 Oct 2013 19:02

Ambrisio, you got them correct! You get bonus points if you can make them Cyrillic xD

I see what you did there :P

Next lesson will be Numbers!

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 16 Oct 2013 19:33

Lesson 3: Numbers Part One

Numbers One to Ten:

1) биир (biir)
2) икки (ikki)
3) үс (üs)
4) түөрт (tüört)
5) биэс (bies)
6) алта (alta)
7) сэттэ (sette)
8) аҕыс (ağıs)
9) тоҕус (toğus)
10) уон (uon)

Questions:

1) түөрт + түөрт = ???
2) биэс + икки = ???
3) икки * биэс = ???
4) уон - сэттэ = ???
5) алта - үс = ???

Ambrisio · Post by **Ambrisio** » 16 Oct 2013 20:05

I just made my own Cyrillic keyboard with MSKLC. It's a phonetic layout that maps easily to the QWERTY keyboard. So now I can type in Yakut (and Russian, and Bulgarian)!

Here are the plurals:

Spoiler:

And the number exercises:

Spoiler:

What about the numbers greater than 10? I would expect "уон биир, уон икки, уон үс, ..."
And that number 7 looks so Latinate! (The Estonian word happens to be similar as well -- 'seitse').

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 16 Oct 2013 20:12

Ambrisio, that's great stuff. I should download that and create one for myself! :)

And correct for Lesson 2 and 3!

Answers So Far!

Lesson 1:

Spoiler:

Lesson 2:

Spoiler:

Lesson 3:

Spoiler:

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 16 Oct 2013 21:19

Ambrisio wrote: What about the numbers greater than 10? I would expect "уон биир, уон икки, уон үс, ..."
And that number 7 looks so Latinate! (The Estonian word happens to be similar as well -- 'seitse').

Yeah, bang on the money! Also yeah. When I transliterated Sakha into Latin for the first time, I mistook it for Finnish!

Another thing that's quite interesting:

умун (umun) = to forget in Sakha
unohtaa = in Finnish
unustama = in Estonian
unutmak = in Turkish

URAL-ALTAIC FTW :DDDDDD

Spoiler:

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 17 Oct 2013 11:59

Lesson 4: Numbers Part 2

Numbers 11 - 10000

11) уон биир
12) уон икки
13) уон үс
14) уон түөрт
15) уон биэс
16) уон алта
17) уон сэттэ
18) уон аҕыс
19) уон тоҕус
20) сүрбэ
21) сүрбэ биир
22) сүрбэ икки
23) сүрбэ үс
30) отут
31) отут биир
40) түөрт уон
41) түөрт уон биир
42) түөрт уон икки
50) биэс уон
51) биэс уон биир
60) алта уон
70) сэттэ уон
80) аҕыс уон
90) тоҕус уон
100) сүүс
110) сүүс уон
145) сүүс түөрт уон биэс
200) икки сүүс
300) үс сүүс
400) түөрт сүүс
500) биэс сүүс
600) алта сүүс
700) сэттэ сүүс
800) аҕыс сүүс
900) тоҕус сүүс
1000) тыһынча (From Russian)
5623) биэс тыһынча алта сүүс сүрбэ үс
10000) уон тыһынча

Spoiler:

Questions:

1) What is 99 in Sakha?
2) What is 156 in Sakha?
3) What is 6149 in Sakha?
4) уон тыһынча - биэс тыһынча алта сүүс сүрбэ үс?
5) туох үс тыһынча биэс сүүс түөрт уон икки Aаҥл тылаҕа?

Ambrisio · Post by **Ambrisio** » 17 Oct 2013 18:49

Spoiler:

So:
Ааҥл = English (borrowed from Russian английский?)
тыла = language (nom. or acc.)
-ҕа = locative case suffix (like Estonian -es)?

And how does copula work in Sakha?

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 17 Oct 2013 19:36

Hey Ambrisio!

Correct again as always!

Ааҥл = English (borrowed from Russian английский?)
тыла = language (nom. or acc.)
-ҕа = locative case suffix (like Estonian -es)?

Yep! with Ааҥл, it's likely its a borrowing. the fact that it doesn't end in a vowel makes it suspicious.
тыла is language!
and -ҕа can be one of the ways the dative/locative cases can manifest itself :P

Unfortunately, Sakha has no copula, so you have to do the Turkic thing and add endings to the verb or noun you want to copularise
E.g. Turkish: Ben şehirdeyim - I am in the city, but I believe there is a verb in Sakha олор which can act as a copula, but I will check my notes and inform you soon! :P

Anyway in Sakha take some examples:
Мин Сахабын = I am a Sakha. (бын = possessive particle)
Мин гуораккабын = I am in the city. (Min guora(t)k| ka | bın)

Spoiler:

Ambrisio · Post by **Ambrisio** » 17 Oct 2013 23:09

бын

So are these right?
I am in Boston - Мин Бостонкабын (or Мин Бостонкобын?)
I am in Cambridge - Мин Кэймбридькэбин

(though I'd expect some allomorphy in the locative case ending.)

And is 'бын/бин' cognate to Turkish 'ben'?

dative

Interesting. In my conlang Proto-Ginösic, the dative ending is -ken.

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 17 Oct 2013 23:39

Мин Бостоҥҥобун
Мин Кэймбридькэбин - You got this one correct :)

I will cover cases soon, I promise. :)

You could say that its a cognate (a slight one anyway) to <men> in Türkmen (as it means I am a Turk, in Türkmen), but I will cover that soon in the next few lessons too :)

I leave you with this:

Мин дьиэҥҥэбин (I am in your house)

Ambrisio · Post by **Ambrisio** » 18 Oct 2013 05:27

So is there a four-way allomorphy (-бын/-бин/-бун/-бүн)?

In 'дьиэҥҥэбин' there has to be a second-person possessive suffix (like Finnish 'Olen talossasi') -- but I just can't find it! The Turkish word for 'house' is 'ev' -- but there is nothing resembling 'ev' in your sentence! Clearly -ҥэ is the locative case and -бин is the copula -- leaving just дьиэҥ (which could be дьиэн -- I'm not sure!), which most probably just means 'house'.

And I just noticed that the title of this thread has a foreign letter (namely, <е>)! Should it be "Саха Тыла үөрэн"? Unless "үөрен" is a Mongolian borrowing (it clearly can't be Russian).

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 18 Oct 2013 10:24

I'm so clever. It should have been э not e. <üören> is where Turkish <öğren> comes from.
The word for house, I believe is a Mongolian borrowing as it's <gyie>

дьиэҥ = Your House <gyieng>
ҥэ = locative case
бин = I am

= I am in your house!

So is there a four-way allomorphy? ...

Nope! In fact there's a twenty-way allomorphy!

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 01 Nov 2013 15:25

I'm just collating information regarding the locative case. Should have another lesson by this weekend.
I will also be providing some audio for those who are interested.

loftyD · Post by **loftyD** » 02 Nov 2013 00:43

Lesson 5: Dative/Locative Cases

In most Turkic languages, distinction is made between the Dative and Locative cases, but in Sakha, the function of both cases have been morphed into one case. One can usually make the distinction in sentences such as the ones below:

Мин күөлгэ бардым
I lake DAT go FIRST PERSON PAST
I went to the lake

Download: Click Here

Ойго моҕотойдор баар
Forest LOC chipmunk PLURAL there are
There are chipmunks in the forest

Download: Click Here

Like we have covered in Lesson 2, suffixes in Sakha can manifest themselves in many different forms. Compared to other Turkic languages such as Turkish or Crimean Tatar, the vowel harmony there is near enough straight forward, but Sakha takes to the next level. There are 20 allomorphs of the morpheme {-KA} , depending on the preceding vowels and consonants. Just as in Lesson 2, I will use the same format to explain how the dative / locative functions.

There are 5 groups:
1) WVD [Wide Vowel or Diphthong]
2) NV [Narrow Vowel and /л р й/]
3) UC [Unvoiced Consonants] *
4) X [After < х > ]
5) N [After Nasals] **

* With the Dative , the final -т of the noun assimilates to -к . Ат: Horse , Акка: To/In the horse
** With the Dative, the final -н of the noun assimilates to -ҥ. Аан: Door , Ааҥҥа: To/In the birch tree.

For the WVD group, we need to see if the noun ends in a wide vowel or diphthong:
If it is, then we need to assess if the vowel is:
a) back except /o/
b) front except /ø/
c) /o/ only
d) /ø/ only

If a, then add <ҕа>
If b, then add <ҕэ>
If c, then add <ҕо>
If d, then add <ҕө>

For the NV group, we need to see if the noun ends in a narrow vowel or /л р й/:
If it is, then we need to assess if the vowel is:
a) back except /o/
b) front except /ø/
c) /o/ only
d) /ø/ only

If a, then add <га>
If b, then add <гэ>
If c, then add <го>
If d, then add <гө>

For the UC group, we need to see if the noun ends in an unvoiced consonant:
If it is, then we need to assess if the vowel is:
a) back except /o/
b) front except /ø/
c) /o/ only
d) /ø/ only

If a, then add <ка>
If b, then add <кэ>
If c, then add <ко>
If d, then add <кө> ***

For the Х group, we need to see if the noun ends in /x/:
If it is, then we need to assess if the vowel is:
a) back except /o/
b) front except /ø/
c) /o/ only
d) /ø/ only

If a, then add <ха>
If b, then add <хэ>
If c, then add <хо>
If d, then add <хө>

For the N group, we need to see if the noun ends in nasals /m n ŋ/:
If it is, then we need to assess if the vowel is:
a) back except /o/
b) front except /ø/
c) /o/ only
d) /ø/ only

If a, then add <ҥа>
If b, then add <ҥэ>
If c, then add <ҥо>
If d, then add <ҥө> ***

*** the material I possess, lacks any words with the marked suffixes.

Questions!

Write the Dative for the following:

1) Ойун
2) куорат
3) Сирэй
4) Дьиэ
5) учуутал
6) бөлкөй

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