Tatar language

Phonology

Vowels

Tatar has 16 vowel symbols representing a variable number of sounds. As a Turkic language, Tatar exhibits vowel harmony, with some of the vowels considered front and others back.

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Front vowels: ä {{IPA|}}, â {{IPA|}}, e {{IPA|}}, é {{IPA|}}, i {{IPA|}}, ó {{IPA|}}, ö {{IPA|}}, ü {{IPA|}}

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Back vowels: {{IPA|a }}, á {{IPA|}}, í {{IPA|}}, ? {{IPA|}}, o {{IPA|}}, u-ú {{IPA|}}

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The usage of í, â, á, ó, ú, é is not convented! Sometimes ?y, a, ya, yo, yu and e are used instead of them.

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Some of them could be found only in Slavic loanwords, such as é, ó, long o, long ?. Acute in á, ó, ú mean palatalisation, but sometimes palatalisated consonate is marked by following y before the vowel. This problem is only for Russian loanwords.

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The commonly pronounced 10 vowels are native Tatar vowels: a-ä, u-ü, í-i, o-ö, ?-e. The last two pairs considered to be short vowels. They also could mean a long vowels, but only in loanwords. {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}} are not considered to be an independent vowels.

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Consonants

Most of these phonemes are common to or have equivalents in all Turkic languages.

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The phonemes /f/, /x/ and /?/ were loaned from European and Arabic languages in the Middle Ages, while /v/ was loaned in the beginning of 20th century. Difference betveen /h/ and /x/ appeared in the 10th century with the appearence of the word Allah and the strongest influence of Arabic and Persian languages. Interestingly, that in atheistic Soviet period /h/ tended to dissapear!

Related Topics:
Allah - Atheist - Soviet

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Pronunciation of loanwords

While the consonants {{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}} are not native to Tatar, they are well established. However, Tatars usually substitute fricatives for affricates, for example {{IPA|}} for {{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}} or {{IPA|}} for {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}} for {{IPA|}}. Nevertheless, literary traditions recommend pronunciation of affricates in loanwords.

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Palatalisation

Palatalisation is not common in the Tatar language. As a result, Tatar speakers have no problem using the Arabic and Janalif scripts, both of which have no palatisation indicators.

Related Topics:
Palatalisation - Janalif

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In general, Russian words with palatalisation have into the speech of bilingual Tatars since the 1930s. When writing in the Cyrillic alphabet Russian words were spelled as they were in the Russian language. In today's Latin alphabet version palatalisation is sometimes represented by an acute diacritic under the vowel.

Related Topics:
1930s - Acute

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Some Tatars speak Russian without palatalisation, which known as Tatar accent.

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Syllable types

• V (?-l?s, u-ra, ö-rä)
• VC (at-law, el-geç, ir-kä)
• CV (qa-la, ki-ä, su-la)
• CVC (bar-sa, s?z-law, köç-le, qo?-ç?q)
• VCC (ant-lar, äyt-te, ilt-kän)
• CVCC (tört-te, qart-lar, 'qayt-qan)

Phonetic replacement

Tatar phonotactics dictate many pronunciation changes.

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Unrounded vowels may be pronounced as rounded after o or ö:

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qor? /qoro/

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bor?n /boron/

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közge /közgö/

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sor? /soro/)

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Nasals are assimilated to following stops:

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unber /umber/

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mengeç /meñgeç/

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Voicing may also undergo assimilation:

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küzsez /küssez/

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Unstressed vowels may be syncopated or reduced:

Related Topics:
Syncopated - Reduced

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ur?n? /urn?/

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kilene /kilne/

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bezne /b?zne/

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kerdem /k?rdem/

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q?r??ç /q?r??ç/

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Vowels may also be elided:

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qara urman /qar'urman/

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kilä ide /kilä'yde/

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tur? uram /tur'uram/

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bula almím /bul'almím/

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In consonant clusters longer than two phones, ? or e (whichever is dictated by vowel harmony) is inserted into speech as an epenthetic vowel.

Related Topics:
Consonant cluster - Phone - Vowel harmony - Epenthetic vowel

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tekst ? /tekest/

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bank ? /ban?k/ (not /bañk/)

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Final devoicing is also frequent:

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tabíb (doctor) ?

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