SAKHA TYLA
I have been living in Moscow for almost half of my life. The first half was in Yakutia, where I grew up with the Yakut language as mother tongue.
I studied it quite enthusiastically, writing texts, even winning local language competitions. Soon after leaving the language environment, however, I noticed that my confidence in the correct reproduction of native sounds started to slowly fade away. Therefore, these days I deliberately focus on what I remember —
by whispering, singing, writing, even scratching in Yakut, trying
to preserve in myself the sounds that are natural, organic to me.
As for my works, the use of the Yakut language has no narrative function. As with any rare language, and Yakut is now listed
as "endangered", to non-native speakers it appears as a mysterious set of unfamiliar sounds which form words everyone can interpret
in their own way. The additional strange charm of the Yakut language is the use of the Cyrillic alphabet mixed with of some of its own characters, which opens a possibility for some Russian-speaker
to vocally reproduce the text.
The resulting effect and the perception of language is not quite unlike "Zaum" — the literary device invented by Russian futurists
in the early 1920s, where the rational elements of natural language are rejected, in favour of constructing verbal constructions
without a certain meaning, to give the phonetics itself a chance making an impact.
A perfect, and most definite example, is this famous sequence from
a 1913 poem by Alexey Kruchenykh:
"Dyr bul schyl
ubesh shchur
skum
vy so bu
r l zz”
1913
This poem in particular not only gives me inspiration, but also rids me of the embarrassment about my own "dyr bul schyl’s" in the Yakut language.
I like how the emotional, the intuitive prevails over the rational in such abstruse language, where the sounds of a poem can be felt almost physiologically.
As Kruchenykh once explained: "Consonants give life, nationality, severity, vowels — the opposite, universal language."
I decided to embroider, write out the words in Yakut that
are often repeated inside me in the rhythmical manner of a spell,
and I illustrate them with scraps of sketches.
Article Yakut “zaum”
I have been living in Moscow for almost half of my life. The first half was in Yakutia, where I grew up with the Yakut language as mother tongue.
I studied it quite enthusiastically, writing texts, even winning local language competitions. Soon after leaving the language environment, however, I noticed that my confidence in the correct reproduction of native sounds started to slowly fade away. Therefore, these days I deliberately focus on what I remember —
by whispering, singing, writing, even scratching in Yakut, trying
to preserve in myself the sounds that are natural, organic to me.
As for my works, the use of the Yakut language has no narrative function. As with any rare language, and Yakut is now listed
as "endangered", to non-native speakers it appears as a mysterious set of unfamiliar sounds which form words everyone can interpret
in their own way. The additional strange charm of the Yakut language is the use of the Cyrillic alphabet mixed with of some of its own characters, which opens a possibility for some Russian-speaker
to vocally reproduce the text.
The resulting effect and the perception of language is not quite unlike "Zaum" — the literary device invented by Russian futurists
in the early 1920s, where the rational elements of natural language are rejected, in favour of constructing verbal constructions
without a certain meaning, to give the phonetics itself a chance making an impact.
A perfect, and most definite example, is this famous sequence from
a 1913 poem by Alexey Kruchenykh:
"Dyr bul schyl
ubesh shchur
skum
vy so bu
r l zz”
1913
This poem in particular not only gives me inspiration, but also rids me of the embarrassment about my own "dyr bul schyl’s" in the Yakut language.
I like how the emotional, the intuitive prevails over the rational in such abstruse language, where the sounds of a poem can be felt almost physiologically.
As Kruchenykh once explained: "Consonants give life, nationality, severity, vowels — the opposite, universal language."
I decided to embroider, write out the words in Yakut that
are often repeated inside me in the rhythmical manner of a spell,
and I illustrate them with scraps of sketches.
Article Yakut “zaum”
"The water is gone. It became quiet. Sleep has come, sleep well." I repeat these words
to myself before going to bed. "Uu" - water. "Uu kelle" - literally your water has come,
but here it's like "a dream has come". "Uu chuumpu" - here “uu” reinforces the definition
of "chuumpu" - silence.
to myself before going to bed. "Uu" - water. "Uu kelle" - literally your water has come,
but here it's like "a dream has come". "Uu chuumpu" - here “uu” reinforces the definition
of "chuumpu" - silence.
"Good. Have a rest. The soul wakes up." So a Yakut shaman wrote to me after one ritual, when I slept for almost 20 hours.
"Soft-soft, pure-pure, white-white snow is coming." I wrote this when I was 9 years old. Recently I found a notebook with naive letters and drawings.
"A strong snowdrop flower emerged from the permafrost." This is a scan of the first snowdrop that I saw last spring in Yakutia during the pandemic.
"How cold it is. I am frozen in this ground!"
"Enter this state. Wake up, Nyunnukka (that's what some relatives call me). Having driven away the terrible animal, dance, my bird."
In the photo, I am a 10-year-old dancing Yakut folk dances.
In the photo, I am a 10-year-old dancing Yakut folk dances.