Last Updated: 2020-07-28
Background
Language Family: Turkic / Western / Ponto-Caspian
Phonology
Consonants
- While Seegmiller (1996) and Seegmiller (1988) include the voiceless velar fricative /x/ (p. 6; p. 502), Campbell and King (2013) include its voiced counterpart /ɣ/ (p. 832). I have chosen to follow the analyses with the voiceless fricative.
- Additionally, Seegmiller (1988) includes /h/ (p. 502). I have chosen to follow the more recent sources and not include this phoneme.
- Many instances of /ŋ/ phonetically result from adjacent /n/ and /ɡ/, but /ŋ/ is still considered phonemic because it occurs in other environments as well (Seegmiller 1996, 7).
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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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Postalveolar
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Palatal
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Velar
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Stops
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p b
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t d
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k ɡ
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Affricates
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tʃ dʒ
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Fricatives
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s z
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ʃ
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x
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Nasals
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m
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n
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ŋ
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Trills
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r
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Approximants
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w
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l
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j
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Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless, whereas those on the right are voiced.
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Vowels
- Karachay-Balkar has vowel harmony based on backness and rounding (Seegmiller 1996, 8).
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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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Mid
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e ø
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o
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Low
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ɑ
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Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are unrounded, whereas those on the right are rounded.
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Alphabet
- Though ⟨ў⟩ is included in the alphabet to represent /w/ (Campbell and King 2013, 833), the Crúbadán corpus does not contain this grapheme. (“Karachay-Balkar: Table of Correspondences” 2019) lists ⟨у⟩ as representing /w/ in addition to /u/, provided specific environments (e.g. when preceded by ⟨а⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨ё⟩, ⟨и⟩, ⟨о⟩, ⟨ы⟩, ⟨ю⟩, ⟨я⟩, ⟨у⟩). The ruleset accounts for this.
- Some graphemes may be transcribed differently in Russian loanwords. For example, grapheme ⟨ю⟩ represents /y/ in Karachay-Balkar but /ju/ in Russian. The ruleset defaults to the native Karachay-Balkar phonemes.
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Grapheme
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Phoneme
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Comment
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а
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/ɑ/
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б
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/b/
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в
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/v/
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appears in loanwords
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г
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/ɡ/
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д
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/d/
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e
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/e; je/
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/je/: word-initially
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ё
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/ø; jo/
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/jo/: appears in loanwords
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ж
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/ʒ/
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appears in loanwords
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з
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/z/
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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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о
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/o/
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п
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/p/
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р
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/r/
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с
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/s/
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т
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/t/
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у
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/u/; /w/
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see above explanation
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ў
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/w/
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ф
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/f/
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appears in loanwords
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х
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/x/
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ц
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/ts/
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appears in loanwords
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ч
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/tʃ/
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ш
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/ʃ/
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щ
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/ʃtʃ/
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appears in loanwords
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ъ
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appears in loanwords
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ы
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/ɯ/
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ь
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appears in loanwords
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э
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/e/
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word-initially
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ю
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/y; ju/
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/ju/: appears in loanwords
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я
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/jɑ/
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Digraph
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гъ
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/ɡ/
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represents [ɣ], an allophone of /ɡ/
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дж
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/dʒ/
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къ
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/k/
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represents [q], an allophone of /k/
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нг
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/ŋ/
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Lenition Rules
- For some speakers, /x/ is realized as [h] before front vowels. Other speakers articulate [h] in all positions (Seegmiller 1996, 11).
- Sequences of vowels are not allowed in Karachay-Balkar. This is resolved via vowel elision (ibid.).
Misc. Rules
- Like other Turkic languages, /k/ and /ɡ/ have a range of different realizations, especially with respect to front and back vowels (Seegmiller 1996, 7).
- Next to front vowels, /k/ and /ɡ/ are realized generally as just that, [k] and [ɡ]. However, next to back vowels, their realizations are more uvular or spirantized; /k/ may be realized as [q], and /ɡ/ may be realized as [ɣ]. Depending on the environment, /ɡ/ may also be realized as [x] or [ɢ].
- Voiced stops and /r/ devoice word-finally and when preceding other consonants (Seegmiller 1996, 9). Voiced stops also frequently devoice when following voiceless consonants.
- Metathesis is common in words that have /x/ followed by a sibilant (Seegmiller 1996, 11).
- Consonants generally geminate through affixation (ibid.).
- The sequence /nɡ/ is often realized as the geminate /ŋŋ/ (Seegmiller 1996, 10).
- With adjacent nasal stops, depending on the status of the affix (e.g. denotes case marking), simplification/degemination occurs (Seegmiller 1996, 11).
- /n/ sometimes assimilates to [m] when preceding /b/, /p/, or /m/ (Seegmiller 1996, 10).
- /b/ surfaces as [m] preceding nasal stops (still occurs if a vowel is present between the /b/ and the nasal) (Seegmiller 1996, 10).
- A stem-final nasal will be realized as [l] when the adjacent suffix begins with /l/ (Seegmiller 1996, 10).
References
Campbell, George L., and Gareth King. 2013. Compendium of the World’s Languages. Routledge.
“Karachay-Balkar: Table of Correspondences.” 2019.
Seegmiller, Steve. 1988. “Phonological and Orthographical Information in Dictionaries: The Case of Pröhle’s Karachay Glossary and Its Successors.” EURALEX.
———. 1996. Karachay. Lincom Europa.