While one might assume that all Russians speak Russian and that’s that, linguistic boundaries are seldom so simple. Russia spans a gigantic geographical area that includes countless indigenous ethnolinguistic groups, many of whom still speak their indigenous language, even as Russian’s ubiquity and prestige threatens the vitality of these minority languages. Russia’s shared border with Mongolia means minority Mongolic languages, such as Buryat, are also spoken within Russian territory.
Nearly three-fourths of ethnic Buryats reported being able to speak Buryat on the 2002 Russian census, and with additional speakers in Mongolia and China’s Inner Mongolia, the estimated number of speakers is above 300,000. But that doesn’t mean the language isn’t under threat. In Russia and China, Buryat speakers face pressure to switch to Russian or Mandarin. Outpaced by Russian, Mandarin, and Mongolian, Buryat is often ignored in the three countries where it’s spoken, leading translation firms to forgo the minority language. TranslationServices.com takes a different approach—we value the Buryat language, and we’re proud to offer high-quality Buryat translation services.
Interested in a free quote for our Buryat translation services? All you have to do is request one.
Buryat: a proud Mongolic language
Buryat is classified as “severely endangered” by UNESCO, although there are efforts underway to revitalize the language, as it is an important part of the Buryat cultural identity. Buryat is mostly in Russia’s Republic of Buryatia, Ust-Orda Buryatia, and Aga Buryatia, as well as northern Mongolia and Hulunbuir in China’s Inner Mongolia. The language is part of the Mongolic language family and was historically written in the traditional vertical Mongolian script. A new writing system called Vagindra, based on the Mongolian script, was created specifically for Buryat but did not gain traction, and today, the language is generally written in the Cyrillic alphabet.
Buryat employs a subject-object-verb word order, like Mongolian and the many Turkic languages also spoken in the region, and it uses postpositions instead of prepositions, meaning these grammatically important words come after the noun they modify. Buryat uses eight grammatical cases to express grammatical relationships, and the language has multiple first-person plural pronouns to distinguish whether or not the listener is included. Buryat verbs also conjugate to indicate the voice, aspect, tense, mood, and person and exhibit a rich system of participle forms.
Buryat is a complicated language, but our Buryat translators are proud to be native speakers and are thrilled to help you translate this precious language.
We’re dedicated to high-quality, flexible Buryat translation services.
Flexibility matters when you’re looking for Buryat translation services—after all, while one client may want Buryat-to-English translation, another may need English-to-Buryat translation. We can serve historians who want to translate old Buryat-language documents written in the traditional Mongolian script, and we can help Buryat speakers passionate about their culture who want to share Buryat folklore with others. We can assist instructors who need educational materials in Buryat to help teach children in the language, and we’re here to help language activists interested in translating English-language books, apps, websites, games, and more into Buryat to help preserve the language. For all your Buryat translation needs, you can count on us.
Why not get started with Buryat translation today? Contact us now to get the ball rolling.