The Kipchak languages (also known as the Kypchak, Qypchaq, Qypshaq or the Northwestern Turkic languages) are a sub-branch of the

Turkic language family Turkic may refer to: * anything related to the country of Turkey * Turkic languages, a language family of at least thirty-five documented languages ** Turkic alphabets (disambiguation) ** Turkish language, the most widely spoken Turkic language * ...

spoken by approximately 28 million people in much of

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, 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 t ...

and

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, spanning from

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to China. Some of the most widely spoken languages in this group are Kazakh, Kyrgyz 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 Common ...

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

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, mea ...

(e.g. ''olor'' vs. ''olar'' "them") *Frequent

fortition Fortition, also known as strengthening, is a consonantal change that increases the degree of stricture. It is the opposite of the more common lenition. For example, a fricative or an approximant may become a stop (i.e. becomes or becomes ). A ...

(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") * Diphthongs 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):

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kipchak Languages Agglutinative languages Turkic languages Vowel-harmony languages