SOME USEFUL PHRASES IN BURYAT FIVE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD BURYAT Сайн байна! LEARN MORE ABOUT BURYATS [saɪn baɪna] /Sain baina!/ AND THEIR LANGUAGE Hi (How are you?) 1. Buryat is spoken natively in Russia, northern Mongolia, and China. Additionally, you can Сайн! find large groups of Buryat speakers in many [saɪn] Central Asian countries, such as Uzbekistan /Sain!/ and Kazakhstan. And there are even growing Hi! (Good) communities of speakers in the US! Би Эмили гэжэ нэрэтэйб. 2. Buryat is structurally very similar to Mongolian [bi ɛmili gɛʒɛ nɛrɛtɛɪb] (an Altaic language), but its vocabulary has been /Bi Ėmili gėzhė nėrėtėib./ heavily influenced by Russian (a Slavic language), My name is Emily. so it is the perfect language to study if you are interested in both Altaic and Slavic languages. Ши хэн гэжэ нэрэтэйбши? [ʃi χɛn gɛʒɛ nɛrɛtɛɪbʃi] 3. Some traditional Buryat arts that are still being /Shi khėn gėzhė nėrėtėibshi?/ practiced today include horsehair weaving, What is your name? blacksmithing, and jewelry making. Ши хаана түрѳѳбши? [ʃi χaːna tyrɵːbʃi] 4. Buryat culture is steeped in folklore. Many of these legends, proverbs, and sayings have /Shi khaana türööbshi?/ been passed orally through generations and Where were you born? generations of people, including heroic epics like Ши моритой гүш? “Geser,” created more than a thousand years ago! [ʃi moritɔɪ gyʃ] /Shi moritoi güsh?/ 5. Buryat culture includes strong philosophical Do you have a car? (literally ‘Do you have a horse?’) ideas about the nature of the world and the human’s place in it, as expressed through Би шамда дуратайб. enduring traditions of shamanism, Buddhism, [bi ʃamda durataɪb] and mythology. /Bi shamda durataib./ I love you. ABOUT US The Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region Һайн даа. (CeLCAR) at Indiana University develops materials for [haɪn daː] learning and teaching a wide variety of Central Asian /Hain daa./ languages. Thank you. For more information, go to celcar.indiana.edu. Баяртай! 238 Eigenmann Hall, 1900 East 10th Street, [bajartaɪ] Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47406 /Baiartai!/ Phone: (812) 856-1230 Good-bye! E-mail : [email protected] Center for Languages of the Special thanks goes to Kathryn Graber Website: https://celcar.indiana.edu for her contributions to this pamphlet. Central Asian Region (CeLCAR) WHO ARE THE BURYAT PEOPLE Similar to other Altaic languages, Buryat is a The historical subject-object-verb (SOV) language. And like roots of Buryat AND WHERE DO THEY LIVE? many other Central Asian languages, Buryat culture are The Buryat people are an indigenous, features vowel harmony, wherein the vowel closely related to traditionally semi-nomadic people living in quality of a vowel in a word directly affects their Mongolian the countryside of the vowel quality of the other vowels within neighbors. East Europe and the word. However, Buryat Central Asia. Modern Another feature of Buryat is the use of culture has also day Buryats are postpositions, so instead of saying “on the been heavily descendants of 13th table” like in English, a Buryat speaker would influenced by Russian culture. Today, Buryats century Siberian and say “stol dėėrė” (table on). living west of Lake Baikal and Olkhon tend to Mongolian people live a more Russified life and have abandoned from the Lake their nomadism for agriculture. However, Baikal Region in WHAT ALPHABET DO THE BURYAT USE? the more eastern Buryats have held on more southern Russia. Today, the Buryat population Throughout history, the Buryats have used a closely to the roots of their ancestors, and is estimated to be about 500,000, with the number of alphabet systems. some of them have continued herding. majority of Buryats located in the Republic Traditionally Buryats wrote Through their long contact with neighboring of Buryatia (also known as just Buryatia), in variations of the vertical peoples, the Buryat people have been northern Mongolia, and northwestern China. Mongolian script, but they introduced to Buddhism and Russian However, smaller clusters of Buryats can also adopted the Russian Cyrillic Orthodoxy, leading many Buryat people be found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and the alphabet system under Russian to adopt these religions. Soviet authorities United States. influence. Then in 1931 harshly repressed church and religion in the the Buryats began using a 1930s, but by 1946, the Buddhist church WHAT KIND OF LANGUAGE IS BURYAT? modified version of the Latin was officially re-established. Modern Buryat alphabet, before switching culture is heavily steeped in Tibetan Buddhism Buryat belongs to the Altaic group of back to Cyrillic in 1939, and shamanism. languages, which includes languages such which is what they still use today. as Turkish, Mongolian, and arguably even Because Buryats are known for being The modern literary language of Buryat is herdsmen and fishermen, it should be no Korean and Japanese. Altaic languages have based on the Khori dialect. historically been spoken across areas of Asia surprise that the main ingredients of their and Eastern Europe, and are named after ethnic cuisines are milk, beef, and fish. the Altai Mountains in Central Asia. Buryat WHAT IS BURYAT CULTURE LIKE? Probably the most well-known culinary belongs to the Mongolic group of Altaic treat of the Buryat is languages, along with Mongolian, Dagur, Traditionally, Buryats, also buuza, also known as Kalmyk, Monguor, and Dongxiang. known as Buryads, are pozy, which is a meat a semi-nomadic people, dumpling. Every Buryat has many dialects, including Khori, herding livestock and Buryat woman knows Lower Uda (which has the strongest Turkic erecting yurts around the how to prepare pozy, influence), Alar-Tunka, Ekhirit- Bulagat, and countryside. Although the and they take pride Bargut. Because of significant differences in majority of contemporary in not only the vocabulary, some also choose to distinguish Buryats are more prone to excellent taste, but between Russia Buryat, Mongolia Buryat, and establishing permanent residences, many still the beautiful design China Buryat. prefer to settle in the countryside like their as well. ancestors. .