Turkmen language
| Turkmen | |
|---|---|
| Türkmen dili | |
| Native to | Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey |
Native speakers | ca. 9 million |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Turkmenistan |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | tk |
| ISO 639-2 | tuk |
| ISO 639-3 | tuk |
Turkmen (Latin script: türkmen, Cyrillic: түркмен, ISO 639-1: tk, ISO 639-2: tuk) is the name of the national language of Turkmenistan. It is spoken by approximately 3,430,000 people in Turkmenistan, and by an additional approximately 6,000,000 people in other countries, including Iran (2,000,000), Iraq (2,000,000), Syria (500,000), Afghanistan (500,000), and Turkey (1,000,000).
Classification, related languages and dialects
Turkmen is in the Turkic family; and further grouped in the larger Altaic language family. It is a member of the southwestern Turkic language family, more specifically the East Oghuz group. This group also includes Khorasani Turkic. Turkmen is closely related to Turkish and Azerbaijani, and it is often considered mutually intelligible.
Turkmen has vowel harmony, is agglutinative, and has no grammatical gender or irregular verbs. Word order is Subject Object Verb.
Written Turkmen today is based on the Yomud dialect. Other dialects are Nohurly, Änewli, Hasarly, Nerezim, Teke (Tekke), Gökleň, Salyr, Saryk, Ärsary and Çowdur. The Teke dialect is sometimes (especially in Afghanistan) referred to as "Chagatai", but like all Turkmen dialects it reflects only a limited influence from classical Chagatai.
Writing system
Officially, Turkmen currently is rendered in the “Täze Elipbiý”, or “New Alphabet”, which is based on the Latin alphabet. However, the old "Soviet" Cyrillic alphabet is still in wide use. Many political parties in opposition to the authoritarian rule of President Niyazov continued to use the Cyrillic alphabet on websites and publications, most likely to distance themselves from the alphabet that Niyazov created.
Before 1929, Turkmen was written in a modified Arabic alphabet. In 1929–1938 a Latin alphabet replaced it, and then the Cyrillic alphabet was used from 1938 to 1991. In 1991, the current Latin alphabet was introduced, although the transition to it has been rather slow. It originally contained some rather unusual letters, such as the pound, dollar, yen, and cent signs, but these were later replaced by more orthodox letter symbols. In 2002, the days of the week and the months were renamed according to the ideology of Ruhnama. In July 2008 this decision was reverted.
Sounds
The following phonemes are present in the Turkmen language:
Vowels
Turkmen contains both short and long vowels. Doubling the duration of sound for a short vowel is generally how its long vowel counterpart is pronounced. Turkmen employs vowel harmony, a principle that is common in fellow Turkic languages. Vowels and their sounds are as follows:
| Front | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded | |
| Close | i/и [i] | ü/ү [y] üý/үй [yː] | y/ы [ɯ] | u/у [u] |
| Mid | e/е [e] | ö/ө [ø] | o/о [o] | |
| Open | ä/ә [æː] | a/а [a]1 | ||
- For purposes of vowel harmony (see below), the central vowel [a] is considered back.
Consonants
Turkmen consonant phonemes (shown in Turkmen alphabet):
| Bilabial | Dental/ alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar/ uvular |
Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plosive | p b п б [p] [b] |
t d т д [t̪] [d̪] |
k g к г [k]/[q] [ɡ]/[ʁ] |
|||
| nasal | m м [m] |
n н [n] |
ň ң [ŋ] |
|||
| trill | r р [r] |
|||||
| fricative | f w ф в [ɸ] [β] |
s z с з [θ] [ð] |
ş ž ш ж [ʃ] [ʒ] |
h х [h]/[x] | ||
| affricate | ç j ч җ [t͡ʃ] [d͡ʒ] |
|||||
| approximant | l л [l] |
ý й [j] |
||||
Grammar
Vowel harmony
Like other Turkic languages, Turkmen is characterized by vowel harmony. In general, words of native origin consist either entirely of front vowels (inçe çekimli sesler) or entirely of back vowels (ýogyn çekimli sesler). Prefixes and suffixes reflect this harmony, taking different forms depending on the word to which they are attached.
The infinitive form of a verb determines whether it will follow a front vowel harmony or back vowel harmony. Words of foreign origin, mainly Russian, Persian, or Arabic, do not follow vowel harmony.
Verbs
Verbs are conjugated for singular and plural number and first, second, and third persons. There are 11 verb tenses: present comprehensive (long and short form), present perfect (regular and negative), future certain, future indefinite, conditional, past definite, obligatory, imperative, and intentional.
There are two types of verbs in Turkmen, distinguished by their infinitive forms: those ending in the suffix "-mak" and those ending in "-mek". -Mak verbs follow back vowel harmony, whereas -mek verbs follow front vowel harmony.
Basic Manifestations of Evidentiality in the Past and the Present
Evidentiality is determined by four markers, roughly:
-dY (Direct Evidence)
-Yp-dYr (Hearsay)
-dYr-mY-näm (Indirect Evidence)
-mAlY (Must Have Been..)
Some independent particles may be said to convey evidentiality: on such word is the particle ''eken''.
'''1.''' Aman syrkawla-p-dyr.
Aman become sick-EV-COP
(I heard that) Aman is sick.(information is "hearsay")
Compare 1 with 2.a and 2.b:
'''2.a.''' Aman syrkawla-dy.
Aman become sick-3sPAST
'''2.b.''' Aman syrkaw.
Aman sick.
Aman is sick. (speaker has spoken with Aman)
'''3.''' Maral Aşgabat-dan gel-ip-dir.
Maral Ashgabat-ABL come-EV-COP
(I heard that) Maral came from Ashgabat.
The Evidentiality of Unlicensed Baked Good Consumption or Verbal Affixes Denoting a Lack of Direct Knowledge
'''4.''' Ben iý-di sen-iň köke-ler-iň-i.
Ben eat-3spast you-GEN cookie-pl-2sPOSS-ACC
Ben ate your cookies.
i. The speaker saw Ben eat the cookies (direct evidence).
ii. Ben told the speaker that he ate the cookies.
'''5.''' Ben sen-iň köke-ler-iň-i iý-ip-dir.
Ben you-GEN cookie-pl-2sPOSS-ACC eat-EV-COP
Ben ate your cookies.
i. The speaker heard from someone else that Ben ate the cookies (hearsay).
ii. Generally, the speaker learned through means other than 4.i and 4.ii that Ben ate the cookies.
'''6.a.''' Ben iý-ip-dir-minäm sen-iň köke-ler-iň-i.
Ben eat-EV-COP-EV you-GEN cookie-pl-2sPOSS-ACC
Ben ate your cookies, or more loosely: I wonder if Ben ate your cookies.
i. The speaker saw evidence of the action, i.e. crumbs, and "made the connection." (informant's account)
ii. The speaker "doesn't concretely know [Ben] ate them." (informant's account)
iii. In the words of the informant: "I am questioning myself. But it's not a question."
iv. In other words: a deduction from indirect evidence, a suspicion
'''6.b.''' Men (...) iý-ip-dir-in-minäm?
I (...) eat-EV-1sPRES(?)-EV
Did I eat something?
i. The speaker questions whether or not s/he has performed an action.
ii. Evidence of the particular action may be direct, however the nature of its complement (i.e. an item of food) may be in doubt.
'''7.''' Ben iý-en bol-maly sen-iň köke-ler-iň-i.
Ben eat-PART be-OBLG you-GEN cookie-PL-2sPOSS-ACC
Ben must be the one who ate your cookies.
i. The action is a logical inference from indirect evidence, similar to in the English gloss.
*Note the emphatic word order (SVO as opposed to canonical SOV) in 4.
*Note the postposed complement in 7. A tree of 7 would look something like {(Ben [{(the one who ate [ti])} must be]) [your cookies]i } using different brackets only in order to make the nesting more obvious.
*In 6.a., the verb appears in the form iý-ip-dir-minäm. I've analyzed the final two syllables as one evidential particle, glossed as EV. This follows partly from the intuitions of the informant, and partly from the consistence: it always appears as -minäm. Nonetheless, it could also be glossed as ...eat-EV-COP-INT-what..., something like, literally, Did Ben eat your cookies, or what?'
Grammatical cases
The Turkmen language has several cases: nominative, possessive, dative, accusative, locative, and instrumental. Pronouns are declined as follows:
| Pronoun cases | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | men / I | sen / you (sing. Inf.) | ol / he/she/it | biz / we | siz / you (pl. or for.) | olar / they |
| Possessive | meniň / my | seniň / your | onuň / his/her/its | biziň / our | siziň / your | olaryň / their |
| Dative | maňa / to me | saňa / to you | oňa / to him/her/it | bize / to us | size / to you | olara / to them |
| Accusative | meni / me | seni / you | ony / him/her/it | bizi / us | sizi / you | olary / them |
| Locative | mende / upon me | sende / upon you | onda / upon him/her/it | bizde / upon us | sizde / upon you | olarda / upon them |
| Instrumental | menden / from me | senden / from you | ondan / from him/her/it | bizden / from us | sizden / from you | olardan / from them |
Suffixes
Suffixes, or "goşulmalar", form a very important part of Turkmen. They can mark possession, or change a verb.
- To make a verb passive: -yl/-il; -ul/-ül; -l
- To make a verb reflexive: -yn/-in; -un/-ün; -n
- To make a verb reciprocal: -yş/-iş; -uş/-üş; -ş
- To make a verb causative: -dyr/-dir; -dur/-dür; -yr/-ir; -ur/-ür; -uz/-üz; -ar/-er; -der/-dar; -t
Suffixes reflect vowel harmony.
Literature
The leading Turkmen poet is Magtymguly Pyragy, who wrote in the eighteenth century. His language represents a transitional stage between Chagatai and spoken Turkmen.
References
- Garrett, Jon, Meena Pallipamu, and Greg Lastowka (1996). “Turkmen Grammar”. www.chaihana.com.
External links
- Turkmen - English / English - Turkmen Dictionary
- Turkmen - English Dictionary
- Turkmen - English / English - Turkmen Dictionary (Freelang)
- Turkmen entry in the Ethnologue
- Omniglot page on Turkmen
- Turkmen language online transliteration
