Kipchak languages explained

Kipchak
Also Known As:Northwestern Turkic
Ethnicity:Kipchaks
Familycolor:Altaic
Fam1:Turkic
Fam2:Common Turkic
Child1:Kipchak–Bulgar
Child2:Kipchak–Cuman
Child3:Kipchak–Nogai
Child4:Kipchak–Kyrgyz
Glotto:kipc1239
Glottorefname:Kipchak
Region:Central Asia, Russia, Northern Caucasus, Balkans, Anatolia Ukraine, China

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 30 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

Unique features

Family-specific

Language-specific

Old TurkicTatar
(for example)
Mid → high
  • e
pronounced as //e//ipronounced as //i//
  • o
pronounced as //o//upronounced as //u//
  • ö
pronounced as //ø//üpronounced as //y//
High → Mid
  • i
pronounced as //i//epronounced as //e//
  • ı
pronounced as //ɯ//îpronounced as //ɤ//
  • u
pronounced as //u//opronounced as //o//
  • ü
pronounced as //y//öpronounced as //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-TurkicCommon TurkicKipchakKipchak–Bulgar (Uralian, Uralo-Caspian)
Kipchak–Cuman (Ponto-Caspian)
Kipchak–Nogai (Aralo-Caspian)
Kyrgyz–Kipchak (Kyrgyz)

See also

Bibliography

Notes and References

  1. http://bashenc.online/ba/articles/93659/ Encyclopedia of Bashkortostan.
  2. Махмутова Л. Т. Опыт исследования тюркских диалектов: мишарский диалект татарского языка. — М.: Наука, 1978
  3. http://www.turkiclanguages.com/www/classification.html Some dialects are close to Kirghiz (Johanson 1998)
  4. Web site: The Teleut Language . Nevskaya, I. A. . Endangered Languages of Indigenous Peoples of Siberia . . 2021-07-16.