This article investigates contemporary uses of the Sakha language algys (blessing poems) and reveals the "old" and "new" types of language materiality present in this genre of ritual poetry. Focusing primarily on one example of algys shared online in 2018, I discuss how performing algys has always involved close interconnection…

This paper explores language ideologies and attitudes among both urban and rural speakers of Sakha (Yakut) in the Far Eastern region of the Russian Federation. Like other non-Russian languages in the Soviet era, Sakha was subject to many repressive and often contradictory policies; while today there is a sizeable, growing population of speakers…

Yakutsk, capital of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) in Russia's Far Eastern Federal District, was often described in 19th and early 20th century accounts as being unique in the Russian Empire in that it was not a solely "Russian" city; rather, it was a Sakha (Yakut) place. Its population, Russian and Sakha alike, were conversant in the…