The Institute for Bible Translation (IBT) has released Genesis and Exodus in the Yakut language.

The Yakuts (endonym: Sakha) are an indigenous people of eastern Siberia and the Far East region of the Russian Federation. The Yakut language belongs to the Turkic group of languages. According to the 2010 All-Russian population census, it is spoken by about 450,000 people.

The Yakut translation of these Old Testament books is based on the Hebrew Masoretic text and has a number of differences from the Russian Synodal version, the most widely read translation in Russia. The reason for the differences is that the Synodal version uses not only the Hebrew original, but sometimes also the Greek Septuagint. These differences are marked in the footnotes at the bottom of the page. Meanings of Hebrew names are also explained in the footnotes. A glossary with explanations of difficult to understand terms, and geographical maps of the ancient Near East are included at the end of the book.

Both of these books are distinguished by a variety of literary styles: sometimes it is a solemn narrative, at other times, a long genealogical list, or a beautiful blessing in verse. In order to convey the exact meaning of these two books in modern literary Yakut, a team of specialists in the fields of translation, theology and biblical studies worked together: translator and exegetical editor Sargylana Leontieva, translator Raya Sibiryakova-Aaya, philological editor Dr. Nikolai Efremov and translation consultant  Dr. Alexei Somov.

The new publication is available in PDF format on the IBT website. Further work is in progress on the remaining books of the Old Testament.