

However, Yakutsk attracts people from other regions and even countries. The following talking phrasebook uses the Central Dialect, which is commonly spoken in Yakutsk, the region’s capital city.The most district dialect “borders” are delineated by the Lena, Amga, and Aldan Rivers, which divide the Republic into four parts. There are many Sakha dialects that developed primarily due to the vast geography of the region and its history.Today, “Sakha” is now more commonly used by the people inside the region and “Yakut” more commonly used by the people outside. The Russian language has historically favored the term “Yakut,” imbuing it with political significance.

Prior to the Russian conquest of Siberia beginning in the early 1600s, these small groups lived separately, self-identifying by clan and kinship system rather than as a collective ethnic group. The exact linguistic origins of the terms are disputed, but it’s widely accepted that both originated as names of smaller tribal groups in the area.

