Bashkir phonology
This article deals with the phonology and phonetics of the Bashkir language and its dialectal varieties.
Consonantism
Bashkir language has the widest range of places of articulation of consonants out of all Turkic languages. Despite lacking affricates that are very common throughout Turkic languages, the Bashkir language still possesses a relatively high amount of phonemes.Below is the chart of consonant phonemes. Phonemes only found in loanwords or allophones are not included.
Most common foreign phonemes include the following:
- Glottal stop in Arabic loanwords: мәсьәлә "problem, issue, matter"
- * It is only highlighted in careful and educated speech, a lot of native speakers usually omit it completely.
- Voiceless uvular fricative in Perso-Arabic loanwords: хаҡ "price, value"
- * This is a notable minimal pair with the phoneme : һаҡ means "safe"
Consonant gemination is not present in Bashkir, although double consonants are still possible on morpheme boundaries.
Voiceless plosives are usually aspirated, although not very strongly, and some vowels block aspiration. Aspiration is also often lost word-finally. Unlike Tatar, the distinction between glottal fricative and velar/uvular fricative is highlighted, even in northwestern dialects, despite them lacking the phoneme in native words. However under the influence of Russian language education and lack of Bashkir language usage outside home and family, a lot of speakers merge either one or both of those into .
Consonant assimilation
Most phonemes change their articulation depending on front or back vowels:- Velar nasal becomes uvular : киң "wide" vs. моң "melancholy; tune";
- * The uvular when followed by uvular is either completely dropped, leaving its only trace in the vowel nasalisation : таңға "to the dawn", or kept in place, assimilating the uvular fricative into uvular plosive : таңға "to the dawn".
- Labiovelar approximant becomes labiopalatal near front vowels;
- Velar plosives and become and near front vowels and and near back vowels;
- * The consonants and have developed as distinct phonemes enough to "break" the vowel harmony rules, so unlike most Turkic languages, Bashkir language does have native words containing and before front vowels. Therefore, these consonants are most commonly analysed as distinct phonemes.
- The lateral approximant is pronounced as a velarized lateral alveolar approximant near back vowels;
- The post-alveolar and are pronounced as retroflex and near back vowels.
Intervocalic position
Bashkir consonants often change their quality in intervocalic position. Both voiceless and voiced plosives get voiced and lenited, so and become, and become or, and becomes. and are exempt from lenition — in itself is stable enough, and all instances of where it could be lenited have already evolved into :Intervocalic position most commonly occurs during suffixation, so a plosive at the end of a word gets voiced if the suffix starts with a vowel:китап "book" — китабым "my book"
Glottal fricative
The glottal fricative is unusually stable in Bashkir language. While in most languages of the world it is often subject to lenition or even completely dropped, in Bashkir language it remains clearly pronounced even intervocally, not even getting voiced to. Moreover, in eastern dialects, the consonants and are debuccalized into in syllable coda, completely eliminating the phoneme and limiting to the few words that start with.However, in northwestern dialects, the - shift did not occur, so this phoneme only exists in loanwords from Arabic and Persian. The Karaidel subdialect corresponds to both and of standard Bashkir.
Vocalism
Historical shifts
Historically, the Proto-Turkic mid vowels have raised from mid to high, whereas the Proto-Turkic high vowels have become the Bashkir reduced mid series. However, in most dialects of Bashkir, this shift is not as prominent as in Tatar.| Vowel | Common Turkic | Tatar | Bashkir | Gloss |
| *e | *et | it | it | 'meat' |
| *ö | *söz | süz | hüź | 'word' |
| *o | *sol | sul | hul | 'left' |
| *i | *it | et | et | 'dog' |
| *ï | *qïz | qız | qıź | 'girl' |
| *u | *qum | qom | qom | 'sand' |
| *ü | *kül | köl | köl | 'ash' |
It is also important to note that the shifts didn't flip the Bashkir and Tatar vocalism — the reduced series of both languages do match their articulation in Kazakh language, for example:
Therefore it is more correct to note that the non-reduced series raised from mid to close in Bashkir and Tatar, and the near-close vowels remained in place, making their relative articulation more open than the non-reduced counterparts.
Vowel phonemes
Bashkir has nine native vowels, and one borrowed vowel found in Arabic and Persian loanwords.Below is the chart of vowel phonemes. Dialectal vowels are marked with a dagger †, foreign vowels are marked with a double dagger ‡. Phonemes only found in loanwords or allophones are not included:
There is no vowel length distinction, though all mid and near-close vowels are shorter than the rest and somewhat less stable.
The vowels and are most commonly realized as and respectively. For some speakers, they might even be completely identical, with only difference remaining in palatalization and/or morphology. See more at Vowel harmony section below.
The foreign vowel is sometimes transcribed as, and the native vowel is sometimes transcribed as. However, their true articulations are most commonly for the former and for the latter. The vowel only occurs in Arabic and Persian loanwords, such as:
- Bashkir тарих "history", from Arabic تَارِيخ
- Bashkir синыф "class", from Arabic صنف
Vowel harmony
Native Bashkir words follow a system of vowel harmony, meaning that they incorporate either exclusively back vowels, or exclusively front vowels, as, for example, in the words бысаҡ and төрмә.The vowels and only occur in the initial syllable.
The vowels and assimilate the and in the following syllables into becoming the rounded counterparts, and this is reflected in writing. For example, the word өй "house" when suffixed by possessive -ҙең becomes өйҙөң. According to Kiyekbayev, they also assimilate the following and, with each following syllable being less and less rounded. For example: олатайҙар "uncles/granddads".
Allophones
Most Bashkir vowels are rather stable in their articulation, with few allophony. The most notable allophone is the vowel becoming when followed by : өй "house". Other allophones only affect words borrowed from Russian.Some vowels have a broad articulation range:
- The vowel might sometimes be realized as
- The vowel might sometimes be realized either as, or as.
- The vowels and might sometimes be realized as and, especially in southern dialects.
Phonotactics
Syllables
The maximal syllable structure is V. Although Bashkir words can take multiple final consonants, the possibilities are limited. Multi-syllable words are syllabified to have C.CV or V.CV syllable splits. C.V split is disallowed. V.V split is only found in loanwords, and is usually broken down by vowel hiatus.The main rules of Bashkir syllable structure are as follows:
- All syllables have a nucleus.
- No diphthongs.
- No word-initial,,,. The consonants,, and only occur word-initially in loanwords. No consonant clusters are allowed in syllable onset.
- No,, in coda. Historical in coda has evolved to in most cases. is also not allowed in coda, although some eastern subdialects debuccalize and to, creating syllable-final.
- All other consonants can appear in syllable coda. Complex codas are limited by a set of consonant clusters, most of which consist of a sonorant and a voiceless plosive.
Onset
The syllable onset allows most consonants, with the exception of,,,. The consonants,, and only occur word-initially in loanwords. No consonant clusters are allowed in syllable onset.Nucleus
The syllable nucleus can contain any of the 9 vowel phonemes, although the close rounded vowels can not occur in non-initial and non-final syllables. Due to the vowel harmony rules, the only way vowels in non-initial syllables differ phonemically are by closedness or openness, effectively reducing the phonemic vowel count in non-initial syllables to 2.Coda
All voiced consonants get devoiced word-finally and before a voiceless consonant. Voiced uvular fricative, can not occur word-finally at all. Syllabification avoids coda as much as possible, unless the next consonant has an onset.Dialectal varieties
Bashkir language has 3 dialect groups: northwestern, southern and eastern. The standard language is based on southern and eastern dialects. All dialects are mutually intelligible, with some slight differences in phonology and sometimes in vocabulary.The northwestern dialects are considered by most Tatar linguists to form a dialect continuum with Tatar language. The southern dialects are considered by some Bashkir linguists to form a dialect continuum with Nogai and Kazakh languages.
Northwestern dialects
The northwestern Bashkir dialect is subject to intense debate over its status as a dialect of Bashkir or Tatar languages, and the debates are a source of confusion in the education system in the region.There are very few differences between standard Bashkir and Tatar languages. The most prominent differences in phonology are the following:
- Bashkir and correspond to Tatar : Bashkir һин vs. Tatar син "you ", Bashkir баҫ vs. Tatar бас "stomp ";
- Bashkir corresponds to Tatar : Bashkir сәй vs. Tatar чәй "tea";
- Tatar corresponds to Bashkir : Tatar җәй vs. Bashkir йәй "summer".
Other notable features, not necessarily shared with standard Tatar language, include:
- Merging of and sequences into palatal and : уйнарға "to play", уйларға "to think"
- Merging of into : өйрәтергә "to teach"
- Rounding of to in initial syllable, with gradual unrounding with each following syllable: балаларға "to the children"
Southern dialects
The southern Bashkir dialects do not differ from standard Bashkir language in phonology, as they were the basis for standard Bashkir phonology. There are only slight differences in morphology. It is commonly perceived by Bashkir people to be the "purest" form of Bashkir language.Some southern subdialects might have a slight reverse to the Northern Kipchak vowel shift. Therefore, the close vowels and might be articulated as and respectively. Some lexical items also might be indicative of preserving the older system, for example the dialectal йоҡ, often pronounced as instead of the standard юҡ for negation.
One notable exception is the Tuq-Soran subdialect, spoken outside Bashkortostan in historical Tuq-Soran canton, as well as in Bashkir villages in Samara and Saratov oblasts. Its most notable features include:
- Usage of interdental in place of many other sibilants: башҡортса — башҡортҫа "Bashkir "; һөйләү — ҫөйләү "to speak, speech"
- Voicing of word-initial plosives, much like in Oghuz languages: түңәрәк — дүгәрәк "circle"
Eastern dialects
The eastern Bashkir dialects differ insignificantly from standard Bashkir language in phonology and morphology. These dialects were the basis for standard Bashkir morphology.Key phonological differences are:
- The consonants and are debuccalized into in syllable coda, completely eliminating the phoneme and limiting to the few words that start with : яҙһа — яһһа "if he/she writes";
- * In some subdialects, the consonants and are instead merged into in syllable coda, limiting to the few words that start with : ҡыҙҙар — ҡыҫтар "girls".
- The consonant undergoes fortition word-initially, changing into or, though this change is practically random and almost never changes all words starting with — the same speaker might pronounce these words with a, with a and with a, all in one sentence.
- The sequence of bilabial plosives and a fricative in a single syllable are merged into : китәбеҙ .
- * By careful inspection, this merge seems to have formed by the lenition of to due to its intervocal position, then due to the reduced vowel and final-obstruent devoicing of into the two consonants got clustered into, which further merged into or the more stable.