Otto Böhtlingk on diphthongs and long vowels in the Yakut language

Now, on the 170th anniversary of the publication of Otto Böhtlingk’s unique work “On the Yakut language”, we turn our attention to a particular issue that Böhtlingk investigated: diphthongs and long vowels of the Yakut language. Before him, Turkology did not recognize the presence of long vowels in the Turkic and Mongolian languages. The fact that the Yakut language showed a developed system of long vowels led Böhtlingk to analyze the nature of this phenomenon in the Yakut language and a comparative study of it in related Turkic and Mongolian languages. Böhtlingk first compared the alternation of short and long vowels, as well as the alternation of diphthongs and long vowels in the Yakut language itself; established the correspondence of long vowels and diphthongs to the combination of intervocalic and guttural consonants in the corresponding syllables of words in the Yakut language itself and in Mongolian and related Turkic languages. Thus, he showed the difference of long vowels from short vowels and the fusion of two vowels from the loss of a consonant between them, as well as the transformation of a diphthong into a long one at the end of the verb base. The purpose of the article is to study and analyze Böhtlingk’s research on long vowels and diphthongs of the Yakut language. With the help of contextual analysis of Böhtlingk’s work, descriptive method and interpretation of linguistic material, the phonetic material used in the work “On the Yakut language” is analyzed. As a result of the analysis of Böhtlingk’s work “On the Yakut language”, the following reasons for the appearance of diphthongs and long vowels in the Yakut language and in other Turkic languages can be established: a variation of a monophthong and a long vowel appears in positional combinations of vowels and consonants; long vowels and diphthongs appear when adding words; long vowels and diphthongs appear in borrowings from other languages; in the Yakut language there are cases of semantic, grammatical, emotionally expressive manifestation of long and short vowels; the opposition of a long and short vowel and a diphthong can and to some extent contribute to the departure from the homonymy of words. At the same time, all these methods, forms and types of vowel phoneme lengthening taken together cannot ensure the formation of a universal system of paired vowel harmony in longitude and brevity.

1. Ubryatova, E. I. Dolgie glasnye yakutskogo yazyka i ih proiskhozhdenie / E. I. Ubryatova // Izbrannye trudy. Issledovaniya po tyurkskim yazykam. – Novosibirsk: Nauka, 2011. – S. 46-54.

2. Byotlingk, O. N. O yazyke yakutov / Perevod s nemeckogo Rassadina V.I. – Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1989. – 640 s.

3. Radloff W. Die Jakutische Sprache in ihrem Verhaltnissezu den Turksprachen/ SPb., 1908. C. 51.

4. Haritonov, L. N. Tipy glagol’noj osnovy v yakutskom yazyke / L. N. Haritonov. – Moskva; Leningrad. 1954. – 312 s.

5. Antonov, N. K. O yakutskih odnoslozhnyh imennyh osnovah s dolgimi glasnymi i diftongami N. K. Antonov // Trudy instituta yazyka, literatury i istorii. Vyp. 3 (8). – YAkutsk, 1961. – 128 s.

6. Dmitriev, N. K. Dolgie glasnye v yakutskom yazyke / N. K. Dmitriev // Issledovaniya po sravnitelnoj grammatike tyurkskih yazykov. Vyp. 1. Fonetika. – Moskva: Izd. AN SSSR, 1955. – S. 194.

7. Barashkov, P. P. O proiskhozhdenii yakutskih dolgih glasnyh i diftongov / P. P. Barashkov // O. N. Byotlingk i ego trud o yazyke yakutov. – YAkutsk, 1973. – S. 102-125.

8. D’yachkovskij, N. D. Zvukovoj stroj yakutskogo yazyka. CH. 1. Vokalizm / N. D. D’yachkovskij. – Yakutsk, 1971 – 192 s.