INITIAL /Y/ CONSONANT IN KAZAKH

Abstract

The /c/ consonant does not appear at the beginning of words in Old Turkic and throughout the historical vocabulary. Throughout the history of the Turkic language, all words starting with /c/ in texts are loanwords: cebe "armor"; cida "spear"; cılasun ~ carasun "hero" (< Mong.); cehiz "dowry" (< Ar.) cenk "war" (< Persian.)

In the Kazakh written literature of the late 19th century, words written with the letter /c/ are based on the regular change y > c. Kazakh culduz "star" in W. Radloff's dictionary; cumurtka "egg"; jüz "face" etc. During the Soviet period, this consonant at the beginning of the word became standard as /j/ in the modern Kazakh written language: Kazak. jas 'young', jıl 'year', jol 'road', jür - 'to walk' etc.

According to this regular sound change, there is no /y/ consonant at the beginning of the word in Kazakh. However, in Kazakh, written in Cyrillic since 1940, the /y/ sound is heard at the beginning of the word: ^{yel "} people; country, homeland" (spelled ел); ^y endi "now; anymore" (spelled енди); ^y erkin "free; independent" (spelled еркин). It is seen that Kazakh proper names such as Erbol, Esbol, Eldos are also written in Latin letters as Yerbol, Yesbol, Yeldos. This development, which clearly has a Russian influence, is analyzed in the paper.