| Kipchak | |
|---|---|
| Northwestern Turkic | |
| Ethnicity | Kipchaks |
| Geographic distribution | Central Asia, Russia, Northern Caucasus, Ukraine |
| Linguistic classification | Turkic
|
| Subdivisions |
|
| Glottolog | kipc1239 |
 | |
The Kipchak languages (also known as the Kypchak, Qypchaq, Qypshaq or the Northwestern Turkic languages) are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family spoken by approximately 28 million people in much of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, spanning from Ukraine to China. Some of the most widely spoken languages in this group are Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tatar.
Kipchak languages by native speakers[edit]
The Turkic languages are a language family of at least 35[1][full citation needed] documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples. The number of speakers derived from statistics or estimates (2019) and were rounded:[2][3]
Linguistic features[edit]
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.
[edit]
- Change of Proto-Turkic *d to /j/ (e.g. *hadaq > ajaq "foot")
- Loss of initial *h (preserved only in Khalaj), see above example
Unique features[edit]
Family-specific[edit]
- Extensive labial vowel harmony (e.g. olor vs. olar "them")[citation needed]
- Frequent fortition (in the form of assibilation) of initial */j/ (e.g. *jetti > ʒetti "seven")
- Diphthongs from syllable-final */ɡ/ and */b/ (e.g. *taɡ > taw "mountain", *sub > suw "water")
Language-specific[edit]
- In both Tatar and Bashkir, the original mid and high vowels are swapped in position by vowel raising and lowering:
| Old Turkic | Tatar (for example) | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid → high | |||
| *e | /e/ | i | /i/ |
| *o | /o/ | u | /u/ |
| *ö | /ø/ | ü | /y/ |
| High → Mid | |||
| *i | /i/ | e | /e/ |
| *ı | /ɯ/ | ı | /ɤ/ |
| *u | /u/ | o | /o/ |
| *ü | /y/ | ö | /ø/ |
Classification[edit]
The Kipchak languages may be broken down into four groups, based on geography and shared features (languages in bold are still spoken today):
| Proto-Turkic | Common Turkic | Kipchak | Kipchak–Bulgar (Uralian, Uralo-Caspian) | |
| Kipchak–Cuman (Ponto-Caspian) | ||||
| Kipchak–Nogai (Aralo-Caspian) | ||||
| Kyrgyz–Kipchak (Kyrgyz) | ||||
| South Kipchak |
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ^ Except for the Southern "dialect", which is classified among the Western Oghuz languages despite its dialect status.[4]
References[edit]
- ^ Dybo, A. V. (А. В. ДЫБО) (2007). "Khronologiya tyurkskikh yazykov i lingvisticheskiye kontakty rannikh tyurkov" Хронология тюркских языков и лингвистические контакты ранних тюрков [Chronology of Türkic languages and linguistic contacts of early Türks] (PDF) (in Russian). Moscow. p. 766. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2005-03-11. Retrieved 2005-03-11.
- ^ https://www.ethnologue.com/
- ^ https://glottolog.org/
- ^ Yazyki mira Языки мира [Languages of the World]. Vol. 2. Indirk: Институт языкознания (Российская академия наук). 1997. pp. 19–20.
Bibliography[edit]
- Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Ágnes (1998). The Turkic Languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-08200-5.
- Menges, Karl H. (1995). The Turkic Languages and Peoples (2nd ed.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-03533-1.