Kipchak languages
The Kipchak languages are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family spoken by approximately 30 million people in much of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, spanning from Romania to China. Some of the most widely spoken languages in this group are Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Tatar.
Linguistic features
The Kipchak languages share a number of features that have led linguists to classify them together. Some of these features are shared with other Common Turkic languages; others are unique to the Kipchak family.Shared features
- Change of Proto-Turkic *d to
- Loss of initial *h, see above example
Unique features
Family-specific
- Frequent fortition of initial
- Diphthongs from syllable-final and
Language-specific
- In both Tatar and Bashkir, the original mid and high vowels are swapped in position by vowel raising and lowering:
Classification