Bashkir language


Bashkir or Bashkort is a Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak branch. It is co-official with Russian in Bashkortostan. It is spoken by approximately 1.6 million native speakers in Russia, as well as in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Estonia, and other neighboring post-Soviet states, and among the Bashkir diaspora. It has three dialect groups: Southern, Eastern, and Northwestern.
WWW Official Site

Speakers

Speakers of Bashkir mostly live in the republic of Bashkortostan. Many speakers also live in Tatarstan, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Tyumen, Sverdlovsk and Kurgan Oblasts, and other regions of Russia. Minor Bashkir groups also live in Kazakhstan and the United States.

Classification

Bashkir and Tatar belong to the Kipchak-Bulgar subgroup of the Kipchak languages. These languages have a similar vocabulary by 94.9%, and have not only a common origin but also a common ancestor in written language—Volga Turki. But Bashkir differs from Tatar in several important ways:
  • Bashkir has dental fricatives and in the place of Turkic,, and. For example, Turkish dost and Bashkir дуҫ, Turkish adım and Bashkir аҙым, Turkish usta and Bashkir оҫта, or Turkish uzun and Bashkir оҙон. Bashkir and cannot begin a word, and the particle/conjunction ҙа or ҙә ). The only other Turkic language with a similar feature is Turkmen. But in Bashkir, and are two independent phonemes, distinct from and, whereas in Turkmen and are the two main realizations of the common Turkic and. In other words, there are no and phonemes in Turkmen, unlike Bashkir, which has both and and and.
  • The word-initial and morpheme-initial turns into. An example of both features is Tatar сүз and Bashkir һүҙ, both meaning "word".
  • Common Turkic turns into Bashkir, e.g., Turkish ağaç, Tatar агач, and Bashkir ағас, all meaning "tree".
  • The word-initial in Tatar always corresponds to in Standard Bashkir, e.g., Tatar җылы and Bashkir йылы, both meaning "warm". But the eastern and northern dialects of Bashkir have the > /~/ shift.
Bashkir orthography is more explicit. and are written with their own letters, Ҡ ҡ and Ғ ғ, whereas in Tatar they are treated as positional allophones of and, written К к and Г г.
Labial vowel harmony in Bashkir is written explicitly, e.g., Tatar тормышым and Bashkir тормошом (, both pronounced, meaning "my life".

Orthography

After the adoption of Islam, which began in the 10th century and lasted for several centuries, the Bashkirs began to use Turki as a written language. Turki was written in a variant of the Arabic script.
In 1923, a writing system based on the Arabic script was specifically created for the Bashkir language. At the same time, the Bashkir literary language was created, moving away from the older written Turkic influences. At first, it used a modified Arabic alphabet. In 1930 it was replaced with the Unified Turkic Latin Alphabet, which was in turn replaced with an adapted Cyrillic alphabet in 1939.
The modern alphabet used by Bashkir is based on the Russian alphabet, with the addition of the following letters: Ә ә, Ө ө, Ү ү, Ғ ғ, Ҡ ҡ, Ң ң, Ҙ ҙ, Ҫ ҫ, Һ һ.
Cyrillic versionPronunciationNotes
Аа, "A" is usually pronounced as in all syllables except last, in last syllable it is pronounced as.
Бб, is the intervocal allophone.
Вв, in Russian loanwords, in Arabic and Persian loanwords.
Гг
Ғғ
Дд
Ҙҙ
Ее, The letter is iotated at the beginning of a word, after a vowel or after a soft or hard sign.
ЁёOnly used in Russian loanwords.
ЖжOnly occurs in loanwords and onomatopoeia.
Зз
ИиOccurs only in the first syllable. In most other contexts, especially in open syllables, it is an underlying /ij/, for example in words like ти /. Hence why the suffixes use the /ð/ consonant following this vowel, unlike /l/ after other vowels: тиҙәр /tijˈðær/, but not тиләр.
Йй
Кк
Ҡҡ
Лл, In front vowel contexts occurs as apical, in back vowel contexts occurs as.
Мм
Нн
Ңң, In front vowel contexts occurs as, in back vowel contexts occurs as.
Оо
Өө, Shifts to in vicinity of : өйҙә
Пп
Рр, is the intervocal allophone.
Сс
Ҫҫ
Тт
Уу, These two letters are used for phoneme when they are written after a back or front vowel respectively. As the vowel phoneme, they can only occur in the first syllable. Therefore if these letters are not in the first syllable, they occur after a vowel and are pronounced as /w/.
Үү, These two letters are used for phoneme when they are written after a back or front vowel respectively. As the vowel phoneme, they can only occur in the first syllable. Therefore if these letters are not in the first syllable, they occur after a vowel and are pronounced as /w/.
Фф
Хх
Һһ
Цц
Чч
Шш
ЩщOnly occurs in loanwords.
ЪъOnly occurs in back vowel contexts. Indicates a glottal stop if placed after a vowel, acts as a syllable separator if placed after a consonant.
Ыы
ЬьOnly occurs in front vowel contexts. Indicates a glottal stop if placed after a vowel, acts as a syllable separator if placed after a consonant.
Ээ
Әә
Юю
Яя,

Bashkir Latin alphabet based on the Common Turkic alphabet

Phonology

Vowels

Bashkir has nine native vowels, and three or four loaned vowels.
Phonetically, the native vowels are approximately thus :
In Russian loans there are also,, and, written the same as the native vowels: ы, е/э, о, а respectively.
  • The vowel may also be realized as.
  • 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.

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.
VowelCommon TurkicTatarBashkirGloss
*e *etitit 'meat'
*ö *sözsüzhüź 'word'
*o *solsulhul 'left'
*i *itetet 'dog'
*ï *qïzqızqıź 'girl'
*u *qumqomqom 'sand'
*ü *külkölköl 'ash'

Consonants

;Notes
  • are dental, and is apical alveolar. The exact place of articulation of the other dental/alveolar consonants is unclear.

Grammar

A member of the Turkic language family, Bashkir is an agglutinative, SOV language. A large part of the Bashkir vocabulary has Turkic roots; and there are many loan words in Bashkir from Russian, Arabic and Persian sources.

Plurality

The form of the plural suffix is heavily dependent on the letter which comes immediately before it. When it's a consonant, there is a four-way distinction between "л", "т", "ҙ" and "д" ; The vowel's distinction is two-way between "а", "ы", "о", "у" ) and "ә", "е", "и", "ө", "ү" ). Some nouns are also less likely to be used with their plural forms such as "һыу" or "ҡом".
suffix consonant---
-лар, -ләрafter all vowels except for и баҡса, "garden"
Pl.: баҡсалар 		сәскә, "flower"
Pl.: сәскәләр
-тар, -тәрmostly after hard consonants – б, д, г, ф, х, һ, к, ҡ, п, с, ш, ҫ, т дуҫ, "friend"
Pl.: дуҫтар 		төҫ, "colour"
Pl.: төҫтәр
-ҙар, -ҙәрafter approximants and some others – ҙ, и, р, у/ү, й тау, "mountain"
Pl.: тауҙар 		өй, "house"
Pl.: өйҙәр
-дар, -дәрafter nasals and some others – ж, л, м, н, ң, з һан, "number"
Pl.: һандар 		көн, "day"
Pl.: көндәр