The Yakuts (or Sakha,
as they call themselves) live in the northeast of Siberia, in the Republic
Sakha (Yakutia), which is an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.
The Yakuts are traditionally semi-nomadic cattle and horse-breeders who
speak a Turkic language – along with the Dolgans from the Taimyr peninsula
(whose language is closely related to Yakut) they are the northernmost
Turkic-speaking population. On the other hand, the neighbouring Evenks
and Evens speak Tungusic languages and the Yukaghirs speak an isolated
language, and they are traditionally reindeer herders and hunter-gatherers.
Since the 18th century, the distinct language and subsistence pattern of
the Yakuts have aroused the interest of ethnographers, anthropologists,
archaeologists and linguists who hypothesized an origin of the population
in the south, most often located more specifically to the northwestern
shores of Lake Baykal.
Not only the fact that the Yakuts speak a Turkic language (the geographically closest Turkic populations are Tuvan and Altay groups in south Siberia) and the horse- and cattle-breeding have led researchers to assume a southern origin of the Yakuts. The language itself contains some indications of a former habitat further to the south, for example in the words for “March”, kulun tutar, which literally means “holding the foals”, i.e. in order to prevent them from suckling so that the mare could be milked. In the harsh climate of Yakutia foals are only born in May, however. The Yakut language also has a word for “camel”, whereas other indigenous Siberian languages borrowed the Russian word verblyud, indicating that the forebears of the Yakuts were familiar with the animal. In addition, the traditional epics and legends of the Yakuts tell of a migration from the south to the middle reaches of the Lena river. On the northwestern shores of Lake Baykal, the archaeologist Okladnikov discovered the remains of a horse- and cattle-breeding population, which he identified as the kurykan mentioned in Chinese sources and appearing in the Turkic inscriptions from the Selenga river valley in what is now Mongolia. These Kurykans lived in the area surrounding Lake Baykal during the second half of the first millenium, A.D. Based on the archaeological remains and a number of rock paintings in that area as well as on the folkloristic and ethnographic data, Okladnikov postulated that a part of the Kurykans migrated to the north along the Lena river after the invasion of the Mongol hordes in the 11th to 13th centuries. He assumed that some admixture with these Mongols had taken place before the migration, and that those Kurykans remaining behind had mixed completely with the invaders, thereby forming the Buryats who still live in the areas surrounding the Baykal. Okladnikov further hypothesized that the groups migrating northwards along the Lena displaced and mixed with the indigenous Evenks, Evens and Yukagirs, thereby forming the Yakuts. Although Yakut is classified as a clearly Turkic language, there are several elements that place it apart from the other members of this language family. A large proportion of words is of Mongol origins (seemingly as many as actual Turkic words), and a number of Tungusic loanwords are known as well. In my first PhD thesis, I attempted to elucidate the origins of the Yakut population using mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomal markers. As is well-known, mtDNA and the non-recombining portion of the Y chromosome are haploid DNA molecules that do not undergo recombination. Since mtDNA is transmitted solely in the maternal line, and as the Y chromosome is transmitted only from men to their sons, the two systems offer the possibility of studying complementary parts of a population’s history, i.e. male- and female-specific histories. The mtDNA analyses show that the Yakuts share an ancestral population with Evenks, with some Mongolian admixture having taken place. The Yakuts do not show affinities to any of the Turkic populations available for comparison. On the other hand, the Y chromosomal analyses show a very recent expansion from only a few founder chromosomes in the Yakut males. This severe reduction of the Y chromosomal diversity could be due to 1) an immigration of a small group of related men, or 2) to a severe population bottleneck. In the first case, the immigrants would have had to have some attributes which led the indigenous Evenk females to mate preferentially with them. This would most plausibly be the “southern” cultural elements, such as horses, cattle, and the knowledge of iron – which are most logically linked with the Turkic language. In this case, a group of Turkic immigrants, carrying the southern cultural elements with them, would have migrated north, where they mated with the indigenous females, who replaced their Tungusic language with the Turkic one. In the second case, a strong group would have decimated the indigenous males, leaving only a few closely related survivors. In this case, both the males and the females would have undergone language replacement – which would indicate that the dominant males were Turkic speakers, and that the replacement process was one of extreme élite dominance. In my current PhD project,
I aim to further elucidate the origins of the Yakuts, especially the men.
I want to do this using both linguistic and genetic approaches. Specifically,
I want to investigate whether there exists a detectable Tungusic substrate
in the Yakut language, as would follow from the genetic results. Thus far,
a Tungusic substrate influence has not been demonstrated for either the
unique grammatical features of Yakut or the large number of words of so-called
“unknown origin”. However, if the results of the mtDNA analyses are correct,
then an appreciable Tungus influence would be expected. Furthermore, if
the hypothesis of a small group of related Turkic men mating with Tungusic
women were true, it would imply that only the women replaced their Tungusic
language. In this case, I would expect to find a difference in the origins
of words in gender-specific domains, such as household chores and implements,
child-care, etc. on the one hand versus hunting, war-fare, animal husbandry
etc. on the other hand. Genetically, I want to further analyze Y-chromosomal
markers in the Yakuts as well as in Tungusic- and Turkic-speaking populations
in order to be able to differentiate between the two competing hypotheses
on the origins of the Yakut men. Furthermore, since the mtDNA data also
show signs of a recent bottleneck in the women (although a much slighter
one than that seen in the Y-chromosomal data), I intend to analyze autosomal
markers in order to investigate the scope of this presumed bottleneck.
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