This study aimed to verify a computational phonetic and acoustic analysis tool created in the MATLAB environment. A dataset was obtained containing 3 broad American dialects (Northern, Western and New England) from the TIMIT database using words that also appeared in the Swadesh list. Each dialect consisted of 20 speakers uttering 10 sentences. Verification using phonetic comparisons between dialects was made by calculating the Levenshtein distance in Gabmap and the proposed software tool. Agreement between the linguistic distances using each analysis method was found. Each tool showed increasing linguistic distance as a function of increasing geographic distance, in a similar shape to Seguy’s curve. The proposed tool was then further developed to include acoustic characterisation capability of inter dialect dynamics. Significant variation between dialects was found for the pitch, trajectory length and spectral rate of change for 7 of the phonetic vowels investigated. Analysis of the vowel area using the 4 corner vowels indicated that for male speakers, geographically closer dialects have smaller variations in vowel space area than those further apart. The female utterances did not show a similar pattern of linguistic distance likely due to the lack of one corner vowel /u/, making the vowel space a triangle.
This paper describes the nature and characteristics of research on the linguistic relation between Turkic and Hungarian. The description begins with linguistic romanticism and the advances of the historical-comparative school, continuing up to recent results of academic research. Besides that, popular scientific contributions and amateurish endeavours questioning the academic achievements are investigated as well. The final part examines some possible reasons of why the academia continuously fails in communicating sciences to the general public.
This is the first serious study on seventeenth-century Central Asian medicine that provides a major resource for the linguistic and cultural history of Central Asia. The richly annotated English translation makes the edition useful for readers without special knowledge on medical history and Turkic studies.
The author offers a critical edition of a seventeenth-century Central Asian medical treatise written by Sayyid Subḥān Qulï Muḥammad Bahādur khan in the Chagatay language.The edition includes a detailed introduction, a transcription of the original text for philological purposes, an annotated English translation, complete lexica of vocabulary, herbs and plants, minerals and chemicals, diseases and related terms, measures and units, personal names and Qur’ānic verses, and finally two manuscripts in facsimile.
The Turkic languages use both derivation and compounding to form new lexemes. These two different strategies often occur in free variation. Consequently, the same semantic concept can be expressed by using both of them.
In this paper, I discuss (1) endocentric compounds based on two non-derived nouns, and (2) nouns formed on the basis of other non-derived nouns by means of derivational suffixes. I first give an overview and formal classification of the compounding and derivational strategies in the Turkic languages. Then I focus on the question how they are related to each other in terms of their semantics.
Yakut (or Sakha) is a Turkic language spoken in East Siberia. Since it has been on the periphery of the Turkic world for a long time, it has preserved a great number of archaic language traits. On the other hand, Yakut people had very intensive contacts to Mongols and Tunguses, as a result of which their language has changed significantly over the course of time. This dichotomy of ‘archaic’ and ‘progressive’ phenomena makes Yakut a very specific case not only for turcological but general linguistic investigations. László Károly’s study presents an elaborated analysis and description of the deverbal nominal derivational suffixes in Yakut as spoken in the pre-Soviet times. Based on the analysis, various aspects of Yakut and at the same time Turkic and Mongolic word formation processes are discussed, such as historical development of the suffixes from Old Turkic up to modern Yakut, changes in the system through language contacts, similarities to and divergency from the other Turkic languages. Besides a formal description, the functional side of the analysed derivational suffixes is presented in a systematic fashion, providing a general framework for future works on comparative derivational morphology.
Modern Turkic Languages is an introduction to the field of Turkic studies designed and written for teaching purposes. The book may be useful to a broader readership, including general linguists and linguists specializing in languages other than Turkic.
After a general introduction and classification of the Turkic languages, the twenty-eight main chapters of the book provide various kinds of information about the entire family. Apart from its concise presentation of language-specific features and text materials in the original orthography, the book has two unique features that are not available in other publications. First, it provides transcriptions and interlinear glosses of the language samples, secondly, each sample is accompanied by an audio file that brings the `dead' letters of the book to life. This rich collection of audio files is the first of its kind and provides a plethora of opportunities for linguistic analyses and classroom discussions.
This paper presents technical aspects and considerations relevant for the creation of two novel corpus-based databases within the field of Turkic studies. The databases will provide textual and linguistic data of various Old and Middle Turkic literary languages utilising the Semantic Web technologies. The paper evaluates the existing ontologies that the projects will implement, and provides a list of potential ontologies that philological projects are most commonly in need of.