🇷🇺Khakas for English speakers

1. Khakas and its world

Khakas (хакас тілі, khakas tili — traditionally тадар тілі, tadar tili) is a South Siberian Turkic language spoken in the Republic of Khakassia in southern Siberia, along the upper Yenisei River, plus adjacent parts of Krasnoyarsk Krai and Kemerovo Oblast.¹² Somewhere between 29,000 and 43,000 people speak it, depending on the census year you trust — and the trend line points down: Khakas is an endangered language, co-official with Russian in Khakassia but shifting toward Russian in most public domains. The 2002 Russian census recorded no monolingual speakers at all; every speaker today is bilingual.²³⁴

That is exactly why it rewards learners. Khakas carries one of Siberia's great oral literatures — the alyptygh nymakh heroic epics performed in khai throat singing to the chatkhan zither — and a written standard (Cyrillic, since 1939) based on the Kacha and Saghay dialects.²⁴⁶ Learning it puts you inside a Turkic language that kept archaic features its famous cousins lost, and inside a living revitalization story.

Хакас тілі — Сибирьдегі тӱрк тіл. Хакас чоны Ким суғ хазында чуртапча. Хакас тілінде хайҷылар алыптығ нымахтар ырлапчалар. Пу тіл уғаа сіліг, че ол ам сидік туста: чиит кізілер кӧп орыс тілінҷе чоохтапчалар. Син хакас тілін ӱгрензең, син чонға полысчазың.

English: Khakas is a Turkic language of Siberia. The Khakas people live along the Yenisei River. In Khakas, khai singers sing the heroic epics. This language is very beautiful, but it is now in a difficult time: many young people speak mostly Russian. If you learn Khakas, you are helping the people.

Why learn Khakas as an English speaker?

• It is a compact introduction to the whole Turkic machine — vowel harmony, agglutination, SOV — in a variety with no grammatical gender, no articles, and famously regular morphology.²⁴
• The sound correspondences are a historical-linguistics playground: where Old Turkic had jïl "year" and beš "five," Khakas says чыл (chyl) and пис (pis); where cousins begin words with b-, Khakas has п- (пу "this").⁴
• Almost no learning competition: outside Russia few people ever attempt Khakas, and speakers respond accordingly. Every learner genuinely matters to an endangered language's ecology.³
• A documented gateway to Siberian culture: epics, takhpakh song-duels, and a real scholarly ladder to climb (Anderson's grammar, Baskakov's dictionary, and a 2023 open-access sketch with glossed fieldwork recordings).⁴⁵

What to expect

Khakas is agglutinative and verb-final: suffixes stack onto roots in fixed order, each doing one job, and their vowels harmonize with the root (front roots take front-vowel suffixes, back roots take back-vowel suffixes). So от "grass" takes -та (отта "on the grass") while иб "house" takes -де (ибде "at home").²⁴ Word order is subject–object–verb, with postpositions and case suffixes instead of prepositions. One pleasant surprise: unlike its Turkic cousins, standard Khakas has only palatal (front/back) vowel harmony to track — rounding harmony survives only in some dialects.⁴

2. Sounds and the Cyrillic alphabet

Khakas has been written in Cyrillic since 1939 (with refinements in 1947 and 1962); earlier missionary-Cyrillic and Latin alphabets came and went.⁶ The alphabet is Russian Cyrillic plus six extra letters — learn these first:²⁶

• Eight vowel qualities (а, е, и, о, у, ы, ӧ, ӱ) each have a long counterpart, written double: аа, оо, ӱӱ… Length distinguishes words, so hold long vowels deliberately.²⁴
• The lax vowels і and ы are extra-short and often vanish in fast speech: полып "being" surfaces as полп.⁴
• Native Khakas words never begin with б, г, д — you'll see п, к, т instead (пу "this," not бу; кирек "need"). Word-initial voiced stops mark Russian loanwords.⁴
• Suffix-initial consonants alternate by rule: past -хан after voiceless consonants (сыххан "went out") but -ге-/-ған after vowels and voiced sounds (килгем "I came"); plural -лар appears as -нар after nasals and -тар after voiceless consonants.⁴
• ф, в, ш (in most positions), ж and ц occur only in Russian loanwords — школа "school."⁴

3. First words: greeting people

— Изен, Айас! Хайди чуртапчазың? — Чахсы, улуғ быйан! А син? — Мин дее чахсы. Анымҷох! — Анымҷох, нанҷым!

English: — Hello, Ayas! How are you (living)? — Fine, many thanks! And you? — I'm fine too. Goodbye! — Goodbye, my friend!

The flashcard deck at the top of this page carries all 303 words and phrases of this guide (Cyrillic + transliteration), and the identical list downloads as CSV, TSV, or an Anki .apkg — the same rows you'll find in the full table on the Khakas vocabulary page.

• Khakas vocabulary — full 303-word table + SRS trainer — The complete deck as a browsable table, with CSV / TSV / Anki / .apkg downloads.

4. Existence, location, and the present tense

Two little words carry your first hundred sentences: пар "there is" and чох "there isn't." Мында суғ пар "There's water here." Ахча чох "There's no money." Add the locative case -да/-де (-та/-те after voiceless consonants) and you can place anything: Мин Хакасияда "I'm in Khakassia"; аалда "in the village"; тағда "on the mountain."²⁴

The everyday present tense is -ча/-че, plus a personal ending:⁴

Мин аалда чуртапчам. Пабам тоғынча, іҷем школада ӱгретче. Туңмам ойнапча. Піс хада чуртапчабыс.

English: I live in the village. My father works, my mother teaches at the school. My little sibling plays. We live together. — A family portrait in four sentences. Note what's missing: no "am/is/are," no articles, and no third-person ending — Khakas marks I/you/we/you-all on the verb and leaves he/she/they bare.

Numbers

1 пір · 2 ікі · 3 ӱс · 4 тӧрт · 5 пис · 6 алты · 7 читі · 8 сигіс · 9 тоғыс · 10 он. Teens: он пір 11, он ікі 12… Tens: чибірге 20, отыс 30, хырых 40, илліг 50, алтон 60, читон 70, сигізон 80, тоғызон 90; чӱс 100, муң 1000. A cheerful ambiguity: тоғыс means both "nine" and "work."²

Practice reader — A1 story: Минің аалым (My village)

Изеннер! Минің адым Айас. Мин Хакасияда чуртапчам. Минің аалым кічіг. Аал тағ алнында турча. Мында суғ пар. Суғда палых кӧп. Аалда кізі кӧп чох, че чон чахсы. Минің пабам пар, іҷем пар. Пабам аалда тоғынча. Іҷем ӱгретчі, ол школада ӱгретче. Минің туңмам пар. Аның ады Тана. Тана кічіг, ол ойнапча. Аал хазында тайға пар. Тайғада аба чуртапча, тіп чоохтапчалар. Че мин абаны кӧрбеенмін! Піс хада чуртапчабыс.

English: Hello! My name is Ayas. I live in Khakassia. My village is small. The village stands at the foot of a mountain. There is a river here. In the river there are many fish. In the village there are not many people, but the people are good. I have a father and a mother. My father works in the village. My mother is a teacher; she teaches at the school. I have a little sister. Her name is Tana. Tana is small; she plays. At the edge of the village there is taiga forest. In the taiga lives a bear, so they say. But I have never seen the bear! We live together.

Ибде піс чейнең айран ісчебіс, халаснаң ит чіпчебіс. Іҷем ӱгре итче — ӱгре уғаа чахсы! Пістің адайыбыс пар. Аның ады Хубай. Хубай улуғ, че чабал нимес. Хоосхабыс таа пар — ол кічіг, хара. Хараада хоосха чӧрче бе? Чох — ол узупча! Пабамның аттары пар: ах ат паза хара ат. Мин ах атха хынчам. Часхыда піс тағзар парчабыс, кӱскӱде чистек чіпчебіс.

English: At home we drink tea and ayran, we eat bread and meat. My mother makes ügre soup — the soup is very good! We have a dog. His name is Khubay. Khubay is big, but not mean. We also have a cat — it is small and black. Does the cat roam at night? No — it sleeps! My father has horses: a white horse and a black horse. I love the white horse. In spring we go toward the mountains; in autumn we eat berries.

Пӱӱн кӱн сіліг. Тигір кӧк, пулут чох. Мин суғзар парчам. Суғ хазында хустар ырлапчалар, от кӧк, порчолар сіліг. Суғда мин палых тудчам. Иирде піс ибде одырчабыс. Іҷем нымах чоохтапча. Нымахта аба пар, тӱлгӱ пар, хозан пар. Тана хатхырча. Ууҷам пісте чуртапча. Ол иргі, че кӱстіг. Иирде ол тахпах ырлапча — мин исчем, Тана исче, Хубай даа исче! Анаң піс узупчабыс. Таңда паза кӱн — паза тоғыс, паза ойын, паза нымах. Мин аалымны, чонымны, тілімні хынчам. Хакас тілі — минің тілім!

English: Today the day is beautiful. The sky is blue; there are no clouds. I am going to the river. On the riverbank the birds sing, the grass is green, the flowers are beautiful. In the river I catch fish. In the evening we sit at home. My mother tells a folktale. In the tale there is a bear, a fox, a hare. Tana laughs. My grandmother lives with us. She is old, but strong. In the evening she sings takhpakh songs — I listen, Tana listens, even Khubay listens! Then we sleep. Tomorrow is another day — more work, more play, another tale. I love my village, my people, my language. Khakas is my language!

5. Ten cases, one logic

Khakas nouns take case suffixes where English uses prepositions. The standard description counts ten cases; here they all are on от "grass":²

Every suffix picks its consonant and vowel by rule (harmony + assimilation), so the system is big but not irregular. Fieldwork adds two footnotes: in the central dialects the instrumental has merged with the ablative (телевизордаң "from/with the TV"), and a further similative case survives on pronouns — мындағ "like this."⁴ Linguists genuinely disagree on whether to count 9, 10, or 11 cases; the table above is the standard school count.²⁴

Possessive suffixes

Like all Turkic languages, Khakas marks the possessor on the noun itself: ат "name" → адым "my name," адың "your name," ады "his/her name" (watch т soften to д between vowels). The polite second person uses the plural form: адыңар "your (respected elder's) name."⁴ Case stacks after possession: аалымда "in my village," пабамның "of my father."

Синің тілің — синің чӱрегің. Пабаңның ибі, іҷеңнің чооғы, ууҷаңның нымағы — прай пу синің хонығың. Кізі позының тілін ундутпаза, чоны даа аны ундутпас.

English: Your language is your heart. Your father's house, your mother's talk, your grandmother's tale — all of this is your life. If a person does not forget their own language, their people will not forget it either.

6. The past, negation, and asking things

The everyday past is -ған/-ген (-хан/-кен after voiceless consonants), again with personal endings: килгем "I came," килгезің "you came," килген "s/he came." The attested fieldwork sentence Мин отыс читі чылда тӧреем "I was born in '37" shows the pattern with the intervocalic -ғ- swallowed in fast speech.⁴

• Verbal negation is the suffix -ба-/-бе- (-па-/-пе-) right after the root: пар- "go" → парба- "not go"; пол- "be" → полбаан(нар) "they were not."⁴
• The negative present fuses to -бин-: Мин пілбинчем "I don't know."⁴
• Imperatives: bare stem to a friend (Пар! "Go!"), and the polite plural -ыңар/-іңер to elders — the attested request Чоохтап пиріңер! "Please say it!" is literally "saying give-please."⁴

Question words

Practice reader — A2 story: Школада (At school)

Кичее мин школазар парғам. Кӱн сіліг полған, тигір кӧк полған. Иртен ирте турғам, чей іскем, халас чігем. Іҷем мағаа чоохтаған: "Айас, пічіктерің ал, пӱӱн улуғ кӱн полар." Школа аалдаң ыраах нимес — мин чолҷа парғам. Чолда мин нанҷымны кӧргем. Аның ады Орис. Піс хада парғабыс. Чолда піс аттар кӧргебіс: ах ат, хара ат, паза кічіг хулун. Орис чоохтаған: "Кӧр, хулун ойнапча!" Піс хатхырғабыс.

English: Yesterday I went to school. The day was beautiful, the sky was blue. I got up early in the morning, drank tea, ate bread. My mother said to me: "Ayas, take your books; today will be a big day." The school is not far from the village — I went along the road. On the road I saw my friend. His name is Oris. We went together. On the road we saw horses: a white horse, a black horse, and a little foal. Oris said: "Look, the foal is playing!" We laughed.

Школада пістің ӱгретчібіс хакас тілін ӱгретче. Ол чоохтаған: "Пӱӱн піс нымах хығырчабыс." Піс нымах хығырғабыс: абадаңар, тӱлгӱдеңер, хозаннаңар. Нымах узун полған, че уғаа чахсы полған. Нымахта аба улуғ паза кӱстіг, тӱлгӱ хыйға, хозан кічіг че чӱгӱрік. Анаң піс сӧстер пасхабыс: суғ, тағ, чир, кӱн, ай. Ӱгретчі чоохтаған: "Чахсы, олғаннар! Хакас тілі — пістің тілібіс. Аны ундутпаңар!"

English: At school our teacher teaches the Khakas language. She said: "Today we are reading a folktale." We read a tale: about the bear, about the fox, about the hare. The tale was long, but very good. In the tale the bear is big and strong, the fox is clever, the hare is small but fast. Then we wrote words: water, mountain, earth, sun, moon. The teacher said: "Good, children! Khakas is our language. Don't forget it!"

Иирде мин ибзер нанғам. Іҷем сурған: "Школада хайди полған?" Мин нандырғам: "Уғаа чахсы! Піс нымах хығырғабыс, сӧстер пасхабыс." Пабам чоохтаған: "Мин кічіг полғам — школада хакас тілі чох полған. Ам син ӱгренчезің — пу улуғ ниме." Хараада мин тӧзекте чатхам, сағынғам: таңда паза школазар парчам, паза ӱгренчем. Хакас тілі сидік нимес — ол сіліг! Таңда ууҷама парчабыс — ол мағаа наа нымах чоохтир. Мин ӧрінчем: ууҷамның нымахтары иң чахсылар!

English: In the evening I returned home. My mother asked: "How was it at school?" I answered: "Very good! We read a tale, we wrote words." My father said: "When I was little — there was no Khakas language at school. Now you are studying it — this is a big thing." At night I lay in bed and thought: tomorrow I'm going to school again, learning again. Khakas is not difficult — it is beautiful! Tomorrow we're going to my grandmother's — she will tell me a new tale. I am glad: my grandmother's tales are the best!

7. Converbs: the glue of Siberian Turkic

Where English chains clauses with "and" and "-ing," Khakas uses converbs — non-final verb forms in -ып/-іп/-п that string actions together before one finite verb: ӱгреніп алып "having studied," чоохтап пиріңер "please tell (lit. saying give)."⁴ Converb + auxiliary is also how Khakas builds aspect:⁴

The infinitive is -арға/-ерге (тоғынарға "to work"), and necessity uses the particle кирек: Мағаа тоғынарға кирек "I need to work." The attested corpus sentence Халас кирек прайзына "Bread is needed by everyone" even throws the dative argument behind the predicate — spoken Khakas moves constituents after the verb for emphasis all the time.⁴

Хакас тілінде кізі мындағ чоохтапча: пір сағыс — пір финит глагол, аның алнында — конверб, конверб, конверб. Ӱгреніп алып, тоғынып алып, чуртап алып — анаң тіл позы ағаа килче. Кӧп хығыр, кӧп ис, кӧп чоохта — тіл синің полар.

English: In Khakas one speaks like this: one thought — one finite verb, and before it converb after converb. Having studied, having worked, having lived — then the language comes to you of itself. Read a lot, listen a lot, speak a lot — and the language will be yours.

Wanting things: a real dialect split

Fieldwork documents a neat grammatical difference between the two dialects that feed the standard language: Saghay speakers say "your working comes" (тоғынарың килче) with the auxiliary кил- "come," while Kacha speakers use хын- "love/want" (парарым хынҷаң "I wanted to go"). Both mean "want." The standard admits both — and which one a speaker reaches for tells you where their grandmother grew up.⁴

Practice reader — B1 story: Ағбансар чол (The road to Abakan)

Часхыда пабамнаң хада піс Ағбансар парғабыс. Ағбан — Хакасияның улуғ городы. Иртен ирте туруп, чей ізіп, піс чолға сыххабыс. Чол узун: тағлар, чазылар, аймах ааллар. Мин кӧзенектең кӧргем: чазыда аттар чӧрчелер, тигірде хустар учухчалар. Чол хазында піс кічіг кӧл кӧргебіс; кӧлде ах хустар полғаннар. Пабам чоохтаған: "Кӧр, Айас, пу прай пістің чиріміс. Мында пістің ӧбекелерібіс чуртаған, мал тутхан, нымах чоохтаған."

English: In spring my father and I went to Abakan. Abakan is the big city of Khakassia. Getting up early in the morning and drinking tea, we set out on the road. The road is long: mountains, steppes, all kinds of villages. I looked out of the window: on the steppe horses were moving, in the sky birds were flying. Beside the road we saw a little lake; on the lake there were white birds. My father said: "Look, Ayas, all this is our land. Here our ancestors lived, kept livestock, told tales."

Ағбанда кізі кӧп, тура улуғ, машина кӧп. Піс музейзер парғабыс. Анда мин иргі нимелер кӧргем: тас кӧзеелер, иргі кип, чатхан. Ӱгретчі-кізі чоохтап пирген: "Пу чатхан — хакас чонының ӱні. Хайҷы чатхан ойнап, алыптығ нымах ырлапча." Мин сурғам: "Хайҷы поларға сидік пе?" Ол нандырған: "Сидік, че сіліг. Ӱгренерге кирек — узун чыллар ӱгренерге." Анаң піс хакас пічіктер садып алғабыс: нымахтар, ырлар, сӧстік.

English: In Abakan there are many people, the buildings are big, there are many cars. We went to the museum. There I saw old things: stone stelae, old clothing, a chatkhan. A guide explained: "This chatkhan is the voice of the Khakas people. The khai singer plays the chatkhan and sings the heroic epic." I asked: "Is it hard to become a khai singer?" He answered: "Hard, but beautiful. One must study — study for long years." Then we bought Khakas books: tales, songs, a dictionary.

Иирде піс ибзер нанғабыс. Чолда мин сағынғам: город улуғ, че минің чӱрегім аалда. Ағбанда кӧп кізі орыс тілінҷе чоохтапча, че музейде, театрда, пічіктерде хакас тілі чуртапча. Мин пабамға чоохтағам: "Мин хайҷы полбаспын, че мин хакас тілін ӱгренчем, аны ундутпаспын." Пабам хатхырған: "Чахсы, оолғым. Тіл — чол осхас: син аныңҷа парзаң, ол сині ибзер ағылар." Ибде мин наа пічіктерні хығырғам. Мин ол кӱнні ундутпаспын.

English: In the evening we returned home. On the road I thought: the city is big, but my heart is in the village. In Abakan many people speak Russian, but in the museum, in the theatre, in the books, the Khakas language lives. I said to my father: "I won't become a khai singer, but I am learning Khakas and I won't forget it." My father laughed: "Good, my son. A language is like a road: if you travel along it, it will bring you home." At home I read the new books. I will not forget that day.

8. Habitual pasts, conditionals, and the shadow of Russian

• The habitual past -ҷаң/-ҷең paints how things used to be: полҷаң "used to be," хынҷаң "used to love/want." It is the storyteller's tense — grandmothers run on it.⁴
• The conditional -са/-се builds if-clauses: кӧзітселер "if they show"; парзаң "if you go."⁴
• The aorist -ар (negative -бас) covers general truths and futures: кирер "will enter," кирбес "won't enter." With the modal particle чік it yields counterfactuals — "I would not return."⁴
• Nominal sentences negate with нимес: андағ нимес "it is not so." Existential negation stays чох: ахча чох "no money."⁴

And you must befriend the elephant in the room: real spoken Khakas is laced with Russian — conjunctions (и, а, но), discourse particles (ну, вот), school-and-office vocabulary, even mid-sentence code-switches. The fieldwork corpus records all of this without embarrassment.⁴ For a learner it cuts both ways: any Russian you know buys free vocabulary, but the language's future depends on speakers choosing the Khakas word where one exists — a choice your own speech can model.

Dialects behind the standard

The literary language stands on two feet: Kacha and Saghay. The differences are audible and systematic — Kacha keeps ч where central varieties spirantized it, can drop the plural's final -р (ӱгретчілені "the teachers"), prefers the longer -пчадыр present, and builds "want" with хын- where Saghay uses кил-. In one recorded conversation a Kacha speaker and a Saghay speaker chat comfortably in mostly-standard Khakas while their phonology quietly gives each away — Saghay centralizing final а (туста → тустэ-like), Kacha singing its intervocalic ч.⁴ Kyzyl, Koybal and Beltir varieties add further texture.²

Practice reader — B2 story: Ууҷамның нымағы (Grandmother's tale)

Минің ууҷам аймах нымахтар пілче. Кічігде мин ууҷамда чайғыда чуртаҷаңмын. Иирде, тоғыс тоозылза, піс отха чағын одырҷаңмыс. От хызыл полҷаң, хараа узун полҷаң, нымах узундаң узун полҷаң. Ууҷам чоохтаҷаң: "Иргі тустарда, тағлар аразында, пір алып чуртаған тіп. Аның ады Албынҷы полған тіп. Ол чонны чабал ханнаң арачылаған." Мин сурҷаңмын: "Ууҷа, алып хайдағ полған?" Ол нандырҷаң: "Кӱстіг дее, хыйға даа. Че прайдаң артых — аның чӱрегі чахсы полған."

English: My grandmother knows all sorts of tales. When I was little I used to live at my grandmother's in summer. In the evening, when the work was finished, we would sit close to the fire. The fire would be red, the night would be long, and the tale longer than long. Grandmother would narrate: "In the old times, they say, among the mountains there lived a hero. His name, they say, was Albynjy. He protected the people from an evil khan." I would ask: "Grandma, what was the hero like?" She would answer: "Both strong and clever. But above all — his heart was good."

Пір хараада ууҷам мағаа чоохтаған: "Айас, ис. Алыптығ нымах — ол нымах ла нимес. Анда пістің чонның сағызы, чуртазы, чолы пар. Хайҷы хайлапча, чатхан ойнапча — искен кізінің чӱрегі кӱстіг полча. Мин кічігде хайҷыларны исчеңмін. Ам хайҷы ас, че нымахтар пічікте пар. Син хығырзаң, олар чуртирлар. Син хығырбазаң — олар ӧлерлер." Мин ол хараада узубаанмын: сағынғам, сағынғам.

English: One night my grandmother said to me: "Ayas, listen. The heroic epic is not just a story. In it are our people's mind, their life, their road. The khai singer sings, the chatkhan plays — and the listener's heart grows strong. When I was little I used to listen to the khai singers. Now the singers are few, but the tales exist in books. If you read them, they will live. If you don't read them — they will die." That night I didn't sleep: I thought and thought.

Ам мин улуғ. Ууҷам иргі, че аның нымахтары минің чӱрегімде чуртапчалар. Мин оларны пасчам: пір нымах, ікі нымах, он нымах. Пічігім ӧсче, чӱрегім ӧрінче. Таңда минің олғаннарым поларлар — мин оларға чоохтирбын, ууҷам мағаа чоохтаған осхас. Тіл ӧлбес, нымах ӧлбес — кізі оларны чоохтапчатса ла. Пу — ууҷамның ӱгредии: "Иң улуғ байлых — алтын нимес, кӱмӱс нимес. Иң улуғ байлых — тіл паза нымах."

English: Now I am grown. My grandmother is old, but her tales live in my heart. I am writing them down: one tale, two tales, ten tales. My book grows, and my heart rejoices. Tomorrow I will have children of my own — I will tell them, the way my grandmother told me. A language will not die, a tale will not die — as long as someone keeps telling them. This is my grandmother's teaching: "The greatest wealth is not gold, not silver. The greatest wealth is language and story."

9. Public Khakas: media, scholarship, and register

Advanced competence means switching registers: the compressed, converb-dense narrative style of the epics; the Russian-inflected conversational register of the street; and the standardized written register of the newspaper Хакас чирі ("Khakas Land"), school textbooks, and official bilingual signage in Abakan.²⁷ Work systematically: take a news paragraph, strip every Russian loan, and re-tell it aloud in plain Khakas; then take a folktale and summarize it in officialese. The gap between those two performances is where C1 lives.

A worked trio from the fieldwork corpus shows the spoken word-order freedom that standard grammars underreport:⁴

Practice reader — C1 story: Тіл — чонның чӱрегі (Language is the people's heart)

Хакасияда пір кічіг аалда чиит ипчі чуртапча. Аның ады Алтынай. Ол школада хакас тілі ӱгретче. Пасха ӱгретчілер ағаа чоохтапчалар: "Ноға син хакас тілін ӱгретчезің? Олғаннарға орыс тілі кирек, английский тіл кирек. Хакас тілінең хайда тоғыс табарлар?" Алтынай нандырча: "Тоғыс — пу хоных нимес. Кізіге тоғыс ла кирек полза, ол кізі нимес, машина полар. Кізіге тіл кирек, нымах кирек, ыр кирек — анаң ол кізі полча."

English: In a small village in Khakassia there lives a young woman. Her name is Altynay. She teaches Khakas at the school. Other teachers say to her: "Why do you teach Khakas? The children need Russian, they need English. Where will they find work with Khakas?" Altynay answers: "A job is not a life. If a person needs only work, that's not a person — that's a machine. A person needs a language, a story, a song — that is what makes them a person."

Алтынай тыңнапча: олғаннар школада орыс тілінҷе ойнапчалар, ибде дее орыс тілінҷе чоохтапчалар. Че ол кӧрче: олғаннар нымахха хынчалар, тахпахха хынчалар, чатханға хынчалар. Анаң ол наа ниме иткен: нымах клуб. Иирде олғаннар клубта чыылчалар: нымах исчелер, ыр ырлапчалар, тахпах тімнепчелер. Пір оолах, Миша, пастап пір сӧс тее пілбеен. Ӱс ай соонаң — ол "Изен, хайди чуртапчазың?" типче, кічіг нымах чоохтапча. Аның ууҷазы ылғапча: "Минің оолғым хакас тілінҷе чоохтапча! Мин сағынғам, пу тіл ӧлче тіп."

English: Altynay listens: at school the children play in Russian, and at home too they speak Russian. But she sees: the children love the tales, they love the takhpakh songs, they love the chatkhan. So she made something new: a story club. In the evening the children gather in the club: they listen to tales, sing songs, compose takhpakhs. One little boy, Misha, at first didn't know a single word. Three months later — he says "Hello, how are you?" and tells a little tale. His grandmother weeps: "My boy speaks Khakas! And I had thought this language was dying."

Пір кӱн Алтынайдаң сурғаннар: "Пір кізі тілні арачылап полар ба?" Ол нандырған: "Пір кізі — чох. Че пір кізі пастап полар. Пір ӱгретчі — он олған. Он олған — он сӧбіре. Он сӧбіре — пір аал. Пір аал — пір чон. Тіл улуғ суғ осхас: ол кічіг харлардаң пасталча. Мин — пір хар. Син дее — пір хар. Хада піс суғ полчабыс." Пу сӧстерні Хакас чирі газетада пас салғаннар. Ам аймах аалларда нымах клубтар пар. Тіл чуртапча — кізілер аны чоохтапчалар ӱчӱн.

English: One day they asked Altynay: "Can one person save a language?" She answered: "One person — no. But one person can begin. One teacher is ten children. Ten children are ten families. Ten families are one village. One village is one people. A language is like a great river: it begins from little snows. I am one snowflake. You too are one snowflake. Together we become the river." These words were printed in the newspaper Khakas Chiri. Now there are story clubs in many villages. The language lives — because people speak it.

10. The music of the epic register

At mastery level your business is sound and formula. Khakas epic style runs on parallel pairs (кӱстіг дее, хыйға даа "both strong and clever"), fixed epithets (ах ат "the white horse," хара тағ "the black mountain"), quotative rhythm with тіп "saying," and the long vowels that give khai singing its floor. Listen to a khai performance with the text in hand and mark every -ып converb chain: the singer breathes at finite verbs, not at commas. Then attempt the C2 exercises of endangered-language work itself: transcribe an elder's recording, note the dialect features honestly (Kacha ч, Saghay final-а centralization), and translate so the English keeps the parallelism without flattening it.⁴⁸

Practice reader — C2 story: Хайҷының сӧзі (The khai singer's word)

Иргі тустарда, тіп чоохтапчалар, Ах Ӱӱс суғ хазында пір хайҷы чуртаған. Аның ӱні тағ осхас улуғ, суғ осхас узун полған. Ол чатханын алза, хай пастаза — хустар учухпаҷаң, чил дее тохтаҷаң: прай чир истіп турҷаң. Ол алыптардаңар ырлаҷаң: ах аттығ алыптаңар, хара тағ аразында чабал ханнаңар, кӱн хызы осхас сіліг хыстаңар. Аның нымахтары ӱс хараа, ӱс кӱн парҷаң — паза кізілер узубаҷаңнар, исчеңнер ле.

English: In the old times, so they tell, on the banks of the White Iyus there lived a khai singer. His voice was great as a mountain and long as a river. When he took up his chatkhan and began the khai, the birds would stop flying and even the wind would halt: the whole land would stand listening. He sang of the heroes: of the hero with the white horse, of the evil khan among the black mountains, of the girl beautiful as a daughter of the sun. His tales would run three nights and three days — and the people would not sleep; they would only listen.

Пір кӱн чиит оол ағаа килген: "Мині ӱгрет — мин хайҷы поларға хынчам." Апсах сурған: "Ноға хайҷы поларға хынчазың? Ат ӱчӱн ме? Ахча ӱчӱн ме?" Оол нандырған: "Чох. Мин искем: син ырлазаң, ӧлген ӧбекелер тірілчелер, тағ ээзілері кӧрінчелер, тілнің тамыры кӧрінче. Мин дее андағ идерге хынчам." Апсах аның харағына узун кӧрген, анаң чоохтаған: "Че. Ӱгренерге узун: он чыл чатхан, он чыл хай, он чыл — сӧс. Иң сидік — сӧс. Хайҷының сӧзінде тӧрт ниме пар: чир, суғ, кізі, тіл. Пу тӧртті ундутсаң — ӱнің пар, сӧзің чох полар."

English: One day a young man came to him: "Teach me — I want to become a khai singer." The old man asked: "Why do you want to be a khai singer? For a name? For money?" The youth answered: "No. I have heard that when you sing, the dead ancestors come alive, the mountain spirits appear, the root of the language shows itself. I too want to do that." The old man looked long into his eyes, then said: "So be it. The learning is long: ten years the chatkhan, ten years the khai, ten years — the word. The hardest is the word. In the khai singer's word are four things: land, water, people, language. Forget these four, and you will have a voice but no word."

Он чыл парған, чибірге чыл парған. Оол апсах полған, апсах чир полған. Ам наа хайҷы Ах Ӱӱс хазында одырча, чатханын тудынча. Аның алнында — олғаннар, интернет, наа туслар. Че хай пастаза — прай иргі кӱс тірілче: тағлар исчелер, суғлар исчелер, ӧбекелер исчелер. Хайҷы ырлапча: "Тіл ӧлбеен — тіл узупчатхан ла. Син аны тірілдер: нымах чоохта, ыр ырла, тахпах тімне. Тілні тірілдерген кізі — алып. Син дее алып пол!" Пу сӧстер — синің ӱчӱн дее, хығырҷы: хакас тілі сині сағыпча.

English: Ten years passed, twenty years passed. The youth became an old man; the old man became earth. Now the new khai singer sits by the White Iyus, holding his chatkhan. Before him — children, the internet, new times. But when the khai begins, all the old power comes alive: the mountains listen, the rivers listen, the ancestors listen. The singer sings: "The language has not died — the language is only sleeping. Wake it to life: tell a tale, sing a song, compose a takhpakh. One who brings a language back to life is a hero. You too, be a hero!" These words are for you as well, reader: the Khakas language is waiting for you.

11. Books, media and culture in Khakas

Хакас тілін ӱгренерге пічіктер пар, газета пар, радио пар. Хакас чирі газетаны хығыр: анда наа чоохтар, аал хонығы, школа сӧстері. Радионы тыңна: анда хакас ӱні чуртапча. Нымахтар хығыр, тахпахтар ис, чатхан ойынын тыңна. Кӱн сай пір сӧс ӱгрензең — чылда ӱс чӱс сӧс полар. Тіл — чол осхас: аныңҷа кӱн сай пар.

English: To learn Khakas there are books, there is a newspaper, there is radio. Read the newspaper Khakas Chiri: in it are the news, village life, school words. Listen to the radio: there the Khakas voice lives. Read the tales, listen to the takhpakhs, listen to the chatkhan's playing. If you learn one word a day, in a year that is three hundred words. A language is like a road: travel it daily.

Reference and scholarship

• Maltseva & Sultrekova, "Khakas" — Journal of Endangered Languages 13(23), 2023 (open access) — The best free short grammar: peer-reviewed, CC-licensed, with a fully glossed Kacha–Saghay conversation from the authors' own fieldwork.
• Anderson, Gregory D. S. Xakas (Languages of the World/Materials 251). Lincom Europa, 1998. — The standard concise English-language grammar.
• Baskakov & Inkizhekova-Grekul, Хакасско-русский словарь (1953) and successors — The foundational dictionary line (via Russian).
• Glottolog: Khakas (khak1248) — Classification (Yenisei Turkic) and bibliography.
• Omniglot: Khakas alphabet and pronunciation — Script history at a glance — missionary Cyrillic, Latin interlude, 1939 Cyrillic.

Listening, watching, reading

• Хакас чирі (Khakas Chiri) — the Khakas-language newspaper — Contemporary written standard: news, culture, school pages.
• GTRK Khakasia — regional TV/radio with Khakas-language programming — Broadcast register; news segments in Khakas.
• Khakas National Drama Theatre (A. M. Topanov), Abakan — Stage productions in Khakas — living formal register.
• Songs of the Khakas (ethnographic recordings) — Khai, takhpakh and chatkhan recordings — the sound world of the epics.
• Khakas New Testament (2009) — parallel text — Slow, standardized register, useful for shadowing.[^3]
• Khakas Research Institute of Language, Literature and History (KhakNIIYALI) — Scholarly publications, folklore volumes, dictionaries.

12. Where this guide's facts come from

The backbone of this guide is the open-access grammatical sketch by Maltseva & Sultrekova (2023), built on their own recorded fieldwork, cross-checked against the standard case table and script history in accessible references; the three quoted corpus sentences are attested items from that fieldwork. The practice stories are original compositions assembled from the deck vocabulary and the documented morphology. Where analyses disagree (the case count; the velar-vs-uvular status of х/ғ), the disagreement is reported, not silently resolved.