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 28 million people in much of
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...
and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
, spanning from
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
to
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
. Some of the most widely spoken languages in this group are
Kazakh,
Kyrgyz Kyrgyz, Kirghiz or Kyrgyzstani may refer to:
* Someone or something related to Kyrgyzstan
*Kyrgyz people
*Kyrgyz national games
*Kyrgyz language
*Kyrgyz culture
*Kyrgyz cuisine
*Yenisei Kirghiz
*The Fuyü Gïrgïs language in Northeastern China
...
and
Tatar
The Tatars ()[Tatar]
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different .
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
Common Turkic, or Shaz Turkic, is a taxon in some classifications of the Turkic languages that includes all of them except the Oghuric languages.
Classification
Lars Johanson's proposal contains the following subgroups:
* Southwestern Commo ...
languages; others are unique to the Kipchak family.
Shared features
*Change of Proto-Turkic *d to (e.g. *''hadaq'' > ''ajaq'' "foot")
*Loss of initial *h (preserved only in
Khalaj), see above example
Unique features
Family-specific
*Extensive
labial
The term ''labial'' originates from '' Labium'' (Latin for "lip"), and is the adjective that describes anything of or related to lips, such as lip-like structures. Thus, it may refer to:
* the lips
** In linguistics, a labial consonant
** In zoolog ...
vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, me ...
(e.g. ''olor'' vs. ''olar'' "them")
*Frequent
fortition (in the form of
assibilation
In linguistics, assibilation is a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is a form of spirantization and is commonly the final phase of palatalization.
Arabic
A characteristic of Mashreqi varieties of Arabic (particularly Lev ...
) of initial (e.g. ''*etti'' > ''etti'' "seven")
*
Diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
s from syllable-final and (e.g. *''taɡ'' > ''taw'' "mountain", *''sub'' > ''suw'' "water")
Language-specific
*In both
Tatar
The Tatars ()[Tatar]
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different and
Bashkir, the original mid and high vowels are swapped in position by vowel raising and lowering:
Classification
The Kipchak languages may be broken down into four groups based on geography and shared features (languages in bold are still spoken today):
See also
*
Kipchaks
The Kipchaks or Qipchaks, also known as Kipchak Turks or Polovtsians, were a Turkic nomadic people and confederation that existed in the Middle Ages, inhabiting parts of the Eurasian Steppe. First mentioned in the 8th century as part of the ...
*
Kipchaks in Georgia
*
Cuman people
The Cumans (or Kumans), also known as Polovtsians or Polovtsy (plural only, from the Russian exonym ), were a Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman–Kipchak confederation. After the Mongol invasion (1237), many so ...
*
Cuman language
Cuman or Kuman (also called Kipchak, Qypchaq or Polovtsian) was a Kipchak Turkic language spoken by the Cumans (Polovtsy, Folban, Vallany, Kun) and Kipchaks; the language was similar to today's various languages of the Kipchak-Cuman branch. C ...
*
Cumania
*
Kalpak
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kipchak Languages
Agglutinative languages
Turkic languages
Vowel-harmony languages