YAKUT LANGUAGE

Yakut Sakha-Tyla member of the Turkic subfamily of the Altaic language family, spoken in northeastern Siberia (Sakha republic ), in northeastern Russia. Because its speakers have been geographically isolated from other Turkic languages for centuries, Yakut has developed deviant features; it demonstrates closest affinity to the northeastern branch of Turkic languages. Almost all the 380,000 ethnic Yakut speak the Yakut language as their mother tongue. Most also speak Russian. Yakut is sometimes used as a lingua franca among other northern peoples. See also Turkic languages.