Yakuts

Yakuts, self-designation: Sakha, are a Turkic people associated with Yakutia/Sakha Republic. The Yakut or Sakha language belongs to the Northern Turkic branch of the Altaic-Turkic family of languages. There are about 363,000 speakers mainly in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taimyr and Evenki Autonomous Districts. Most scholars believe the Yakuts originally migrated from the region of Lake Baikal to the basins of the Middle Lena, and the Aldan and Vilyuy rivers, where they mixed with Siberian tribes such as the Evans and Evenks. The northern Yakuts were largely hunters, fishermen and reindeer herders, while the southern Yakut raised cattle and horses. Both groups lived in yurts and led a semi-nomadic life moving from winter to summer camps each year. In the 1620s Russians began to move into their territory, annexed Yakutia, imposed a fur tax, and managed to suppress several Yakut rebellions between 1634 and 1642. The discovery of gold and, later, the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway, brought ever-increasing numbers of Russians into the region. By the 1820s almost all the Yakuts had been converted to the Russian Orthodox church although they retained, and still retain, a number of shamanistic practices. In 1919 the new Soviet government named the area the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Stalin's policy of collectivisation, which began in 1928, was responsible for many thousands of deaths, from which Yakut society did not really begin to recover until the 1960s. An independent Yakut Republic was declared by the Supreme Soviet of Yakutia on 15 August, 1991 but, as the Russians greatly outnumbered the Yakuts in the region, this never became a reality.

External Links

http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzsylm/sakha/bib/
  • A multi-language dictionary: Yakut - Classical Mongolian - Khalkha - Russian - German - English
http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzsylm/mongol/mongol_sakha.html

 

<< PreviousWord BrowserNext >>
parti acadien
allen neuharth
nimh
tender vittles
serosa
serous
hms quail
geodesic curvature
hms quilliam (g09)
pichincha
1800 in canada
hms quadrant (g11)
christmas eve on sesame street
hms quentin (g78)
dotwiki
cameron willingham
1801 in canada
hms quality (g62)
1803 in canada
list of aircraft of the rcaf
1802 in canada
boquern
hms quiberon (g81)
marcelo ros
hms queenborough (g30)
1804 in canada
1805 in canada
1806 in canada
japanese law
1807 in canada
tuvans
carlo saraceni
1808 in canada
distinguished service medal (uk)
distinguished service medal
artemisia (plant)
1809 in canada
chuvash
ric ocasek
1810 in canada
george knudson
linpack
karachays
1811 in canada