An interesting point on Ottoman Turkish

Borrowed an Ottoman grammar (Osmanlıca Dersleri I by Dr. Yılmaz Kurt, published by Akçağ) today. I'm surprised I can actually read it in Turkish very well with a dictionary. Now there's an interesting point which has bearings on the relationship between Eski Anadolu Türkçesi, or even Klasik or Yeni Osmanlıca, with Eastern Turkic languages:

ی ye harfi ne zaman u, ü okunur?

Türkçe kelimlerde sonda bulunan "u" harfleri bazen "و" la değil "ye" ile gösterilir.

1: جی : cı, ci, cu, cü eki; Osmanlıca'da her zaman جی gösterilir. قوریجی korucu, قوشوجی koşucu, بوغوجی boğucu, اوچنجی üçüncü کوپری جی köprücü

2: می : mı, mi, mu, mü soru eki Osmanlıca'da her zaman می ile gösterilir. کلدی می geldi mi? اولدی می oldu mu? بولدی می böldü mü?

3: Bazı isimlerde ve fiilerde "u" sesi "ی" ile belirtilir. اناطولی Anadolu, بوری boru, قوزی kuzu, قمری kumru, طوغری doğru, قوری koru, اولدی oldu, صولدی soldu

What I meant by the 'relationship' between Anatolian Turkish and Eastern Turkic languages is that we cannot help but notice the phonetic similarity between orthographical representations of the Ottoman words and those Uyghur words. We know that in Uyghur, suffixes -Ci, -mi and -di (third person singular past aorist) are not influenced by vowel harmony. The vowel remains i regardless of the vowel in the preceding syllable - at least in orthography! Some Uyghur speakers do show a penchant for vowel harmony, especially in pronouncing -mi. But that can also be attributed to vowel weakening, since whereas we observe the distinction i/ı well, lip rouding is always absent, making ü/u impossible. We would assume that in ancient 'careful' pronunciation, the i would have been fully articulated without lapsing into ı.

Now this is what we can observe in Ottoman Turkish orthography: the spelling of those suffixes contradict vowel harmony rules. Since orthography has a tendency to fall behind the development of phonetics, which is what has resulted in the highly irregular spelling spelling systems of English, French and Danish, we can confidently assume that in such languages, the orthography reflects historical pronunciation. Conciliating that with Ottoman Turkish, we can make assumptions on the pronunciation of Old Anatolian Turkish by saying that vowel harmony was not prominent, or at least was not standardised, in those suffixes, by analogy with Uyghur, and people did not feel the need to represent them orthographically, because the phonemes [i], [ɪ/ɯ], and possibly [u] and [y], were treated as the allophones, just as people don't feel the need to orthographically represent the aspirated k (IPA [k] as in 'kite') and the unaspirated k (IPA [k'] as in 'sky') differently in English. This explanation makes sense because we assume that Old Anatolian Turkish was closer to its Eastern cousins than Modern Turkish is.

Uyghur grammar note - Present aorist tense

The present aorist tense in Uyghur is used to describe habitual, repetitive actions or actions scheduled to take place in the immediate future. It can be compared to the Turkish -r present tense. Although sometimes rendered into English as -ing, it does not emphasise on the action in progression at the present moment. If you really want to make a big deal, there's a present continuous tense characterised by the affix -iwat, corresponding directly and strictly to the English present continuous as used in 'I am watching TV at the moment', that is to say, not as in 'I am studying at this unversity' which is more or less the same thing as 'I study at this university, or 'I am going to the cinema this afternoon' which is more or less the same thing as 'I'll go to the cinema this afternoon'.

To be honest, personally I think this tense is pretty jokes. The formation is so easy that if you can't do it correctly, you shouldn't learn Turkic languages. Because:

verb root + i/y + personal endings

The personal endings are basically almost intact personal pronouns, except for first person plural and third person (sg. and pl. again share the same ending), which receive a little bit of understandable modification. The rule for i/y alternation is simple: if the verb root ends in a consonant, it's an i , if a vowel a y. Not that it makes a lot of difference in speech. In fact either way you are going to hear a high front vowel between the verb root and the personal ending. It's only in orthography that you can see the distinction, really.

Now let's move on to the personal endings:

   Singular                         Plural                         

mən   -mən                      biz   -miz

sən      -sən                      silər  -silər

siz       -siz                       

u          -du                        ular  -du

Don't you just LOVE Uyghur (Chagatay conjugation is the same, by the way)? It's basically like saying 'go-I, go-you, go-he, go-we, go-you, go-they' in English!! Even the seemingly irregular bits can be rationalised: b -> m is a classic Turkic thing. Compare Turkish ben and Uyghur mən, Uzbek men. And Uyghur bu (this) and mundaq (this way, thus). The phonetic distance between b and m isn't much at all: they are both bilabial, voiced stops. The only difference is that m is nasal and b isn't. So m here can be seen as a weakened version of b. And b has all the rights to be weakened - it is now the onset of a suffix. As for the intrusive d in the third person which has disturbed the otherwise beautiful regularity, I guess it's just because it sounds a bit silly to say iu. Turkic languages don't really allow diphthongs. For ease of pronunciation, extra sounds are usually inserted.

Let's conjugate two verbs now:

çiqmaq: to come out, to go out, to appear, to happen, to produce

mən  çiqimən               biz  çiqimiz

sən     çiqisən               silər çiqisilər

siz      çiqisiz

u         çiqidu                 ular  çiqidu

işləmək: to work

mən  işləymən             biz  işləymiz

sən     işləysən             silər işləysilər

siz      işləysiz

u         işləydu              ular  işləydu

I think this has covered all. Peace.

Uyghur grammar note - the past simple

I just realised I haven't posted any grammar lessons. Now here it is, the easy peasy past simple. The formation is simple as the same suggests: verb root + (mi - negative particle) + D (past sign, alternating between d/t depending on the phonetic context) + personal ending + (mu - interrogative particle)


Mi and mu never changes. D changes to d after a vowel or a voiced consonant, and to t after a voiceless consonant. Now the variable bits: the personal endings:

                                          Singular                                  Plural

First person:         -im  -üm  -um                                -uq
Second person:     -iņ   -üņ   -uņ                 -iņlar  -üņlar  -uņlar
Second person:             -iņiz
   (formal)
Third person:                  -i                                                -i

Anyone familiar with Turkish will notice from the paradigm some significant differences between Uyghur and Turkish. The most striking difference is the incompleteness of the vowel harmony in Uyghur. The really 'harmonised' persons are the first singular and the second singular and plural (put in red). The vowel of the formal second person singular and third person (sg. and pl.) is fixed on i, whereas that of first person plural is fixed on u. Moreover, the plural ending -lar in the second person plural ending doesn't seem to phonetically agree to the preceding vowel either.

In any Turkish grammar book with paradigms one will usually spot four varieties of a harmonised vowel slot: i, ı, ü and u. In Uyghur, one doesn't. But it's only in the orthography. In the actual pronunciation, there is a distinction between the high front vowel i and it's centralised version ı, which, however, are rendered the same orthographically as 'ى' and here in transliteration, 'i'. They are allophones to each other and a native speaker is supposed to know naturally where to pronounce it as i and where as 'ı'. The rules are rather complicated and will be included in a detailed discussion on Uyghur phonology I'll publish in future. But the general rule is that when there are 'back' consonants, such as q, ğ and x, or back and low vowels, such as a, o, u, around, i is realised as ı if not further harmonised into u. In other cases it's realised as i, if not harmonised into ü. In fact, the harmonisations i -> ü and ı -> u do occur where the orthography doesn't represent it sometimes. But it's not the subject of discussion of this post. Uyghur phonetic changes are very complicated and they involve a lot of deletion, lenition, devoicing, tensing and laxing, which explains why you never hear a good, clear 'ikki' but always a 'shki' or even 'shke'. As I said, this is not the subject of discussion today. I'll post something in the future, hopefully soon.

Now no waffling, let's conjugate some verbs:

ötmek: to past, to spend (time)

mən   öttüm                        biz     öttuq
sən      öttüņ                        silər   öttüņlar
siz       öttiņiz
u          ötti                              ular   ötti

oqumaq: to read, to study

mən   oqudum                    biz      oquduq
sən      oquduņ                    silər    oquduņlar
siz       oqudiņiz
u          oqudi                          ular    oqudi

barmaq: to go

mən   bardim                      biz     barduq
sən      bardiņ                      silər   bardiņlar
siz       bardiņiz
u          bardi                           ular   bardi