I invite anyone who can and wants to to edit this article, here, until it's ready to put up!
Phonology
editSome header text if anyone can think of anything nice. blahblah Phonologically, Kazakh is a standard turkic language but differs from its near relatives in these ways (summarise, stuff like j>ʒ but short and general). blah blah Like other Turkic languages, a significant feature of the Kazakh phonology is the harmonic alternation between front and back phones, described below.
Consonants
editThe following chart depicts the consonant inventory of Kazakh; many of the sounds, however, are allophones of other sounds or appear only in recently loan-words. The 18 consonant phonemes listed by Vajda are in bold—since these are phonemes, their listed place and manner of articulation are very general, and will vary from what's shown. The borrowed phonemes f, v, ɕ, tɕ and x, only occur in recent mostly Russian borrowings, and are shown in roman text in the table below.
In the table, the elements left of a divide are voiceless, whilst those to the right are voiced.
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Dental/ Alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar/ Uvular |
Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives | p | b | t | d | k | g | ||||||||
| Nasals | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||
| Fricatives | f | v | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | ɕ | x | h | |||||
| Affricates | tɕ | |||||||||||||
| Tap | ɾ | |||||||||||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||||||||||
| Lateral approximants |
l | |||||||||||||
Vowels
editKazakh has a system of six phonemic nine phonemic vowels, which are shown in the table below. Three of these are phonetically diphthongs, however Vajda argues that this has no phonemic bearing, and that they are in fact not phonemically composed of the elements which make them up, but are instead one phonemic element. The rounding contrast and /æ/ generally only occur as phonemes in the first syllable of a word, but do occur later allophonically; see the section on harmony below for more information.
| Front | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unrounded | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | |
| High | ɪ | ʉ | ə | ʊ |
| Complex | i̯ɪ | u̯ʉ | u̯ʊ | |
| Low | æ | ɑ | ||
Harmony
editKazakh exhibits a strong system of front-back harmony, with only somewords of recent foreign origin as exceptions. This harmony affects both the consonants and the vowels, with the velar consonants [k], [ɡ] and [ŋ] and front vowels alternating with uvular consonants [q], [ʁ] and [ɴ] and back vowels. The lateral approximant /l/ also has two allophones, a velarised dental in front words and a (postalveolar/palato-alveolar) in back words.
Additinonally, there is a weaker system of rounding harmony, which resembles that of Kyrgyz. After a rounded vowel, the following vowels also tend to be rounded. The system is strongest closest to a phonemically rounded vowel, and is optional/avoided in certain circumstances (describe them if true). This system is not reflected in the orthography.
Allophonic variation
editIn addition to the velar–uvular harmonic alternations described above, the consonants [b], [g] and [q] are lenited between vowels into [β], [ɣ] and [χ].
When followed by glides, the high lax vowels /ɪj/, /ʉw/, /əw/ and /ʊw/ are replaced by the high tense vowels [i], [u], [u] and [u], respectively. (dbl check those, i think i'm wrong at least twice.) This does/does not also occur to the complex vowels.