Phonetic Aspects of the Turkic-Mongolian Language Contacts

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to identify traces of Turkic-Mongolian language contacts in the structural and taxonomic organization of consonant systems in the South Siberian Turkic languages and the Mongolian languages of Russia and the Mongolian People’s Republic. The work is based on the generalization of the results of long-term experimental phonetic studies obtained by Siberian linguists using a complex methodology that includes both linguistic methods of phonological analysis and objective methods of articulatory and acoustic phonetics. Instrumental data indicate significant structural and typological differences in the organization of Mongolian consonant systems, determined both by the processes of historical contact with the Turkic, Tungus-Manchu, and Ugro-Samoyed languages, and by the laws of immanent development. Khalkha-Mongolian and Kalmyk consonantism, which is based on a trichotomic opposition in articulatory tension (strong / weak / super-weak phonemes), is closer to the Tuva and Tofa languages - the South Siberian Turkic languages of the Sayan-Baikal branch of the Circum-Baikal language Union. This specificity can be considered as a result of the assimilating influence of the Mongolian ethnic groups on the previous Turkic-speaking population: by switching to the Mongolian language, the native Turks preserved their articulatory-acoustic base in it, focused on the relevance of the 3-step gradation of units according to the degree of tension. Another niche in the typological classification is occupied by the Hori-Buryat consonant system, structured by the binary opposition of weak and super-weak consonant phonemes. The unacceptability of highly stressed settings for the articulatory base of native speakers includes the Khori-Buryat language in one cluster with the Turkic languages of the Altai-Sayan branch of the Circum-Baikal language Union (Altai, Khakass) formed on the Ugro-Samoyed substrate. The Yakut language, which was heavily Mongolized during the ethnic fusion of the ancient Turks and Khidans, has a consonantal system with a basic orientation to the opposition on the additional vocal cords work (voiceless / voiced / sonorous), developed under the influence of active contacts with the Tungus-Manchu tribes and under the pressure of the Russian phonological system. Instrumental data show that the Turkic-Mongolian language community is heterogeneous in its composition and structure, and the obvious material and structural-typological proximity of the consonant systems of the Altaic group languages is the result of convergence, rather than divergence from a common root.