Kipchak languages

Kipchak
Northwestern Turkic
EthnicityKipchaks
Geographic
distribution
Central Asia, Russia, Northern Caucasus, Balkans, Anatolia Ukraine, China
Linguistic classificationTurkic
Subdivisions
  • Kipchak–Bulgar
  • Kipchak–Cuman
  • Kipchak–Nogai
  • Kipchak–Kyrgyz
Glottologkipc1239

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.

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 /d͡ʒ/ (e.g. *hadaq > acaq "foot")
  • Loss of initial *h (preserved only in Khalaj), see above example

Unique features

Family-specific

  • 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

  • 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/
/ø/ ü /y/
High → Mid
*i /i/ e /e/
/ɯ/ î /ɤ/
*u /u/ o /o/
/y/ ö /ø/

Classification

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)

See also


This page was last updated at 2024-02-21 06:44 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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