Last Updated: 2019-08-06
Background
Language Family: Turkic / Bolgar
- Chuvash, also called Bulgar, is spoken in the Chuvashia republic in western Russia.
Phonology
Consonants
- /b/, /d/, /g/, /f/, /z/, /ʒ/, /ts/, and /dʒ/ are preserved only in loanwords (Russian) (Clark 2006, 434). Therefore, voicing is not phonemic within the Chuvash language.
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Place of Articulation
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Manner of Articulation
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Labial
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Alveolar
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Alveolo-Palatal
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Postalveolar
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Palatal
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Velar
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Stops
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p
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t
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k
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Affricates
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tʃ
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Fricatives
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v
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s
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ɕ
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ʃ
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χ
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Nasals
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m
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n
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Trills
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r
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Approximants
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l
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j
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Vowels
- There is some debate concerning /ӗ/ and /ӑ/ in terms of what phonemes they actually represent. They are said to be reduced, with /ӑ/ being a back-to-central vowel and /ӗ/ being a front to central vowel (Clark 2006, 434). Based on this description and the diagram he provides, I have chosen to use /ɛ/ and /ʌ/.
- Note: /o/ does not seem to be included in the phonemic inventory; however, it is often mentioned as appearing heavily through Russian loanwords (and in the Crúbadán corpus) (Clark 2006, 434). I have opted to include it in the ruleset.
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Front
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Back
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High
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i y
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ɯ u
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High-Mid
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e
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Low-Mid
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ɛ
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ʌ
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Low
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ɑ
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Note: The high front and back vowel are ordered unrounded and rounded. The rest of the vowels are unrounded.
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Alphabet
- Much of the grapheme to phoneme mapping was inferred from Krüger, Sinor, and Krüger (1997).
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Grapheme
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Phoneme
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Comment
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a
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/ɑ/
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ӑ
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/ʌ/
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в
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/v/
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e
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/je/; /e/
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/je/: word-initially; /e/: elsewhere
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ӗ
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/ɛ/
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и
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/i/
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й
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/j/
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к
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/k/
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л
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/l/
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м
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/m/
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н
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/n/
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п
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/p/
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о
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/o/
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appears heavily in loanwords
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р
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/r/
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с
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/s/
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ҫ
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/ɕ/
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т
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/t/
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у
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/u/
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ӳ
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/y/
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х
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/χ/
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ч
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/tʃ/
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ш
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/ʃ/
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ы
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/ɯ/
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э
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/e/
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ю
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/ju/
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я
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/jɑ/
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Lenition Rules
- Voiceless consonants are voiced intervocalically, after sonorants, and before vowels (Clark 2006, 435)
Misc. Rules
- Consonants palatalize preceding and following front vowels (Clark 2006, 435).
- The Chuvash language requires vowel harmony (Clark 2006, 436).
- Gemination can occur with any consonant (specification only on native phonemes) (Dobrovolsky 1996, 31).
- Geminate consonants are realized as voiceless (ibid.).
References
Clark, Larry. 2006. “Chuvash.” In The Turkic Languages, edited by Lars Johanson and Éva Á. Csató, Repr, 434–52. Routledge Language Family Descriptions. London: Routledge.
Krüger, John R., Denis Sinor, and John R. Krüger. 1997. Chuvash Manual: Introduction, Grammar, Reader, and Vocabularly. [Reprint der Ausg.] Bloomington 1961. The Uralic and Altaic Series, volumes 1 - 150 / with a new introd. by Denis Sinor ; Vol. 7. Richmond: Curzon.