Standard Lemma guide

Yamnaya

adj · name · noun · 3 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • /ˈjæmnaɪə/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.

1

adj

Meaning 1

Of or relating to the Yamnaya people or culture.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: not-comparable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

name

Meaning 2

A late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic steppe), dating to 3300–2600 BCE, often associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

The people of the Yamnaya culture.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: plural, plural-only

Examples

  • 2016, David W. Anthony (translator), Pavel F. Kuznetsov, Oleg D. Mochalov, Chapter 4: The Samara Valley in the Bronze Age: A Review of Archaeological Discoveries, David W. Anthony, Dorcas R. Brown, Aleksandr A. Khokhlov, Pavel F. Kuznetsov, Oleg D. Mochalov (editors), A Bronze Age Landscape in the Russian Steppes: The Samara Valley Project, UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, page 81, Archaeologists by 2002 had identified 17 Yamnaya cemeteries in the Samara Valley containing 45 kurgans and 51 graves (Figure 4.2).
  • 2017, David W. Anthony, 2: Archaeology and Language, Pam J. Crabtree, Peter Bogucki (editors), European Archaeology as Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania Press, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, page 55, The tested Corded Ware individuals are modeled as having an ancestry 79% derived from Yamnaya, 4% from WHG, and 17% from EEF (Haak et al. 2015).

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From Russian Ямная (Jamnaja), short for я́мная культу́ра, using the feminine form of я́мный, an adjective formed from я́ма (jáma, “pit”), referring to the culture's pit-grave burial practices. The alternative form Yamna is the corresponding form of the Ukrainian adjective я́мний.