INITIAL /Y/ CONSONANT IN KAZAKH
Makaleler > Tam Makale · 2025
Yazarlar: Mustafa ÖNER
Bulletin of Dulaty University, Uluslararası, 2025, cilt 18, ss 36-42
DOI: 10.55956/telg9245
Özet
The /c/ consonant does not appear at the beginning of words in Old Turkic and throughout the historical vocabulary. Throughout the history of the Turkic language, all words starting with /c/ in texts are loanwords: cebe "armor"; cida "spear"; cılasun ~ carasun "hero" (< Mong.); cehiz "dowry" (< Ar.) cenk "war" (< Persian.)In the Kazakh written literature of the late 19th century, words written with the letter /c/ are based on the regular change y > c. Kazakh culduz "star" in W. Radloff's dictionary; cumurtka "egg"; jüz "face" etc. During the Soviet period, this consonant at the beginning of the word became standard as /j/ in the modern Kazakh written language: Kazak. jas 'young', jıl 'year', jol 'road', jür -'to walk' etc.According to this regular sound change, there is no /y/ consonant at the beginning of the word in Kazakh. However, in Kazakh, written in Cyrillic since 1940, the /y/ sound is heard at the beginning of the word: yel " people; country, homeland" (spelled ел); y endi "now; anymore" (spelled енди); y erkin "free; independent" (spelled еркин). It is seen that Kazakh proper names such as Erbol, Esbol, Eldos are also written in Latin letters as Yerbol, Yesbol, Yeldos. This development, which clearly has a Russian influence, is analyzed in the paper.Key words:Kazakh language, Kipchak Turkic, initial /y/ consonant, /y/ > /c/ sound change, historical phonology, Codex Cumanicus, Mahmud al-Kashgari, Cyrillic influence, Russification, Kazakh orthography, Latin script reform, sociolinguistics, language identity, phonological evolution, W. RadloffIntroduction. The evolution of phonemes in Turkic languages reveals the intricate processes of sound change influenced by both internal developments and external contact. One such transformation is the emergence of the consonant /c/ at the beginning of words –a feature not present in Old Turkic but found in various Kipchak and Oghuz languages in later periods. This paper focuses particularly on the historical, phonetic, and sociolinguistic implications of the sound shift from /y/ > /c/ within Kipchak Turkish and related dialects. Early records, such as Mahmud al-Kashgari’s seminal Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, provide primary evidence of this transformation, with later dictionaries and grammar works offering further insight. Understanding how /c/ came to occupy an initial position –especially in Kazakh –offers a lens through which to study language change under social and political pressures such as Russification.Conditions and Methods of Research. This study employs a historical-comparative linguistic approach, drawing on bothprimary sources and secondary linguistic literature. Sources include:-Medieval Turkic texts such as Codex Cumanicus and Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk-Kipchak literary relics such as the Gulistan Translation and Irshadu'l-Muluk ve'-Selatin-Modern lexicographic and phonetic documentation by scholars like W. Radloff, P.M. Melioransky, and Ahmet Baitursynuly