The Phonetic Appearance of the Nizhneudinsk Dialect of the Buryat Language: Current State

The article analyzes the current state of the phonetic system of the Nizhneudinsk dialect of the Buryat language in comparison with  corresponding data collected by other researchers more than forty  years ago. The Nizhneudinsk dialect is the most western Buryat  dialect and is isolated from the others, so its phonetics has a lot of  unique features. The materials were obtained during the 2016 expedition to Nizhneudinsky District of Irkutsk Oblast.  Nowadays the dialect can be designated as endangered, so its  recording and analysis are timely and relevant. The analysis of the  recorded materials revealed the peculiarities as follows. In vocalism:  the back vowels a, u, o become the front ones ä, ü, ö before the  vowel *i in the following syllable: bär’ika < bariqu ‘to hold’, kürigan  < quriγan ‘lamb’; both front and back diphthongs become front  monophthongs: sää < čai ‘tea’, öö < oi ‘wood’, tüümer < tuyimer ‘fire’, k’üüten < küyiten ‘cold’, t’iime < teyimü ‘this kind’, dülee <  dülei ‘deaf’; quite a number of words preserve the unbroken *i in the fi rst syllable: t’iree < kirüge ‘saw’, sh’inka < činaqu ‘to cook’. In  consonantism: the stop character of the sound k, developed from *q  and *k, instead of the fricative kh in other Buryat dialects: kur’im <  qurim ‘wedding’, daka < daqa ‘fur-coat’; transformation of *gi into  d’i, and *ki into t’i: erd’i < ergi ‘coast’, tart’i < tariki ‘brain’, art’i <  ariki ‘alcohol’; interchange of dorsal stop and fricative consonants: jir  naashaa ~ d’ir naashaa < ire naγasi ‘come here’; preservation of  affricates in some words: kün’d’il ~ kün’dzhil < könjil ‘blanket’,  nant’ika ~ nanchika < nančiqu ‘to beat’; the palatalized character of  the sound sh: sh’i < či ‘you’, kash’ar < qačar ‘cheek’, palatalization of a consonant in the position before front vowels: m’üükaa  ‘некрасивый’, or’öö ‘late’. Still, some deviations from the rules  occur: sometimes informants pronounce the fricativekh instead of  the stop k; in some cases diphthongs are preserved. These  deviations in the speech of the Nizhneudinsk Buryats appeared under  the influence of other Buryat dialects and are also  determined by the poor knowledge of the native Buryat dialect.

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