NOTE: To display Sakha letters correctly, please, change character encoding for Cyrillic Windows-1251.

Alphabet

A lady, of Transilvania, Romania, whose hobby was to research the Turkic languages, asked “As far as I could see, the Sakha language has short and long consonants and vowels. Is it true? How many vowels does it have?” The asnwer was as follows:

The alphabet of the modern Sakha language consists of 40 letters, including 8 vowels and 32 consonants. Based mainly on the Cyrillic alphabet.

Extra seven letters – ө,ү (vowels) and h, дь, нь (consonants) – were added in order to denote specific sounds in the Sakha language. Last two letters – дь, нь – identify the one sound.

Eight letters (и, ү, ы, у, э, ө, о, а) are used to denote 20 different vowels, including 8 short, 8 long and 4 diphthongs.

Short and long pronunciation has impact on meanings and grammatical forms. Long vowels are identified with double identical letters, and pronounced slowly and two times longer than short ones are.

Examples:

тис (to string) – тиис (teeth),
кыс (to slice) – кыыс (a girl),
тас (to carry) – таас (a stone),
бар (to go) – баар (to have),
ат (a horse) – аат (name),
кус (a dug) – куус (to hug),
тур (to stand) – туур (to pull out).

Vowels и, ы, у, а are articulated in Sakha as same as in Russian, but double ии, ыы, уу, аа much longer.

Four diphthongs are marked by two vowels. They are иэ, үө, ыа, уо.