Some New Results in the Genealogical Classification of Turkic Dialects: ‘Cases of Affricates’

Introduction. As is well known, the three Turkic dialectal continua — Tatar-Bashkir, Shor-Khakass-Chulym, and Karachay-Balkar ones — have developed quite distinctive reflexes of proto-Turkic palatal *j- and *č-, *-č(-). While compiling the Dialectological Atlas of Russia’s Turkic Languages, the authors were able to compose exact isoglosses of *j- and *č change in members of the mentioned continua, which made it also possible to partially reevaluate genetic clusterization on the basis of this data. Materials and Methods. Apart from the available publications and archival sources on the three areas in question, the analysis is based on the authors’ extensive field work that involves the use of a set of lexical questionnaires compiled in accordance with known aspects of the Turkic linguistic history. The source recordings for every speaker were turned into idiolectal audio-dictionaries and are linked to an electronic etymological database of the Turkic languages, each elicitation analyzed both with the comprehension method and the software for experimental phonetics. Results. As it turns out, this methodology of field work and post-analysis provides information crucial for detailed linguistic clusterization of dialectal continua in particular and any dialectal system in general. Traditionally, subtle problems of divergence and convergence, problems of archaic and innovative phenomena receive their solutions. The results are as follows. Palatal *j- and *č in the languages of the Khakass-Shor-Chulym group have changed by a strict series of rules none of which could be simultaneous, nor could follow each other in a different order. Thus, the two Middle Chulym dialects — Melet and Tutal ones — prove to lack an immediate linguistic ancestor, the Tutal ‘dialect’ is an archaic version of Mrassu Shor, while Melet is closely related to Kyzyl Khakass. Reflexes of *j- and *č are also principal isoglosses for a previously undocumented Khakass dialect, which does not have any specific affinity with Saghai, Kyzyl and Kachin dialects. Areal analysis of KarachayBalkar shows that dz < proto-Turkic *j- is a secondary development, while, on the other hand, it is finally proven that reflexes *j- > dz~dʑ and *j- > ʑ~z form a more significant isogloss. And for the Tatar-Bashkir dialectal continuum, there were identified three main types of proto-Turkic *jreflexation; a chronology for these three types intermixing during the early period of the continuum is also proposed.

Turkic languages, dialectology, Khakass language, Shor language, Chulym-Turkic language, Karachay-Balkar language, Tatar language, Bashkir language, areal linguistics, dialectal continuum, historical phonetics

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