International Journal Of Literature And Languages
98
https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ijll
VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue05 2025
PAGE NO.
98-101
10.37547/ijll/Volume05Issue05-27
Ghozi Olim Yunusov on the Vowel System of Uzbek
Dialects
Ergashova Gulnoza Shukurovna
Doctoral Student, Tashkent State University Of Uzbek Language And Literature Tashkent City, Republic Of Uzbekistan
Received:
29 March 2025;
Accepted:
10 April 2025;
Published:
30 May 2025
Abstract: -
The article studies the ideas of the enlightened Jadid writer Ghozi Olim Yunusov about the vowel
system in Uzbek dialects. His views on the vocalism and vowel system of Uzbek dialects are critically and
analytically assessed.
Keywords: -
Phonetic-phonological system, vocalism, variation, diphthong, grapheme, simple vowel, obscene
vowel, indifferent vowel, synharmonism.
Introduction: -
The issue of the phonetic-phonological
system of Uzbek dialects was the subject of research in
two works by Ghozi Olim. In the 12th issue of the
journal “Maorif va o‘qitg‘uchi” in 1927, the writer
published an article entitled “Voices of the Uzbek
language”, in which he tried to shed light on the
quantitative and qualitative characteristics of vowel
and consonant phonemes in the Uzbek language, or
rather, in Uzbek dialects. He used the reformed Arabic
script and transcription based on the Latin alphabet.
This source was analyzed in N. Yangibaeva’s
dissertation on “The process of Uzbek
linguistics in the
20s of the 20th century (based on the materials of the
journal “Maorif va o‘qitg‘uchi”) [1]. In his work “An
experiment in the classification of Uzbek dialects”, he
notes that he wrote texts from dialects in the
“international scientific
phonetic alphabet (in which
M.F.A. is in brackets)”. However, he himself admits that
he could not strictly adhere to this alphabet. He
attributes this to the difficulties of the printing press.
Because “the printing presses did not have letters for
scient
ific
spelling”
[4;5].
This
situation
is
understandable, since we have an idea of the state of
technology at the time when this work was published.
Ghozi Olim explains that he could not show the
variations of phonemes in dialects or could not find a
way to
show them as follows: “However, these invisible
phonetic features do not have a semantic role in terms
of influencing the meaning, they can only be significant
in terms of pronunciation [4;5]”. In fact, it was clear to
Ghozi Olim that every sound is important for
dialectology.
Based on these two sources, Ghozi Olim's views on
vowels in the Uzbek language can be analyzed as
follows.
He thinks about the very narrow, narrow, medium and
wide degrees of vowels. When Ghozi Olim speaks of the
three degrees of vowels, he gives explanations that
remind us of the principle of the degree of opening of
the mouth in the classification of vowels, which is noted
in our current literature, but in describing them, one
can feel that the idea is about the elongation of vowels,
in particular, he explains the vowel "i" as follows:
- in closed syllables, if there is no open syllable before
or after it, it represents a “very narrow” (tip of the
tongue) sound. He does not give an example of it, but
only says that he used it “in collecting examples.” This
can be understood as follows: in words like олтим,
бердек, the vowel i of a very narrow degree is used in
the syllables -dim, bir-;
- if there is a closed syllable in an open syllable and
before and after it, it is a wider degree, that is, as if the
vowel i in the syllables ki-, -
di in words like kiş, keldi,
etc., is a “wider” degree. It can be understood as an
intermediate degree;
- if the open syllable is at the end of the word, there are
three degrees of openness (i.e. wide). Continuing this
explanation, he says that the vowel “i” is pronounced
with an inclination to “e” and considers it a sound close
to “e”. Perhaps he meant syllables like
-ki, -ngi in the
old and new words. It seems that in these places we are
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International Journal Of Literature And Languages (ISSN: 2771-2834)
not talking about the degree of opening of the mouth,
but about the short and long pronunciation of vowels.
Even then, what was said should have been reinforced
with examples. Indeed, in Uzbek dialects there are
places where the vowel “i” is pronounced long.
Professor K. Yudakhin, taking into account the fact that
the vowel “i” in the Karabulak dialect is pronounced
long and in the past tense definite verb, gave a
transcription of the text [2;21], but Ghozi Olim does not
think about this, but about the three degrees of
openness of vowels. Such thinking does not correspond
to phonetic theories, otherwise it is not possible to
determine three degrees for all vowels depending on
the opening of the mouth, but vowels are classified
according to the degree of opening of the mouth. He
also touched on the importance of observing the three
degrees in narrow vowels and says in this regard:
“People who do not know the law of opening Uzbek
narrow vowels with such three degrees of openness,
that is, those who learn the Uzbek language, make very
obscene mistakes in pronunciation, spoil the linguistic
taste of the Uzbek listener and undermine the effect of
their speech [4;6]”. At this point, we find it necessary to
dwell on one hint in Ghozi Olim’s comments. However,
the numbers 9˚, 9˃, ˂9, ˂9˚
were used to determine the
degree of openness, so it was not possible to know for
what purposes they were used. Therefore, it is believed
that these three degrees existed only in narrow vowels.
Before classifying Uzbek dialects, Ghozi Olim, while
explaining the possibilities of using transcription signs
for the examples given, provides information about the
articulation and acoustic characteristics (pronunciation
and audibility) of vowels and consonants (which he also
calls phonemes) in Uzbek dialects. Ghozi Olim also uses
the terms letter and sound as synonyms, and this
thinking is also connected with the tradition of the
time, in the work “Ways of Agreement” published by
“Chigatai Gurungi” in 1919, the term letter was used in
the sense of sound [6;13]. Thus, Ghozi Olim used this
term within the framework of tradition.
Description of vowels. Ghozi Olim, relying on the
tradition of the time, divides vowels into simple and
complex vowels. He does not express an opinion on the
nature of these terms, but uses them as a tradition of
the time. In fact, the term basit (given as basit) meant
simple vowels, while the term complex meant
diphthongs and letter combinations uv, yy. We will
study the description of these vowels by comparing
them with his initial ideas in
the article “An Experiment
in the Classification of Uzbek Dialects” and “The Sounds
of the Uzbek Language” published in 1927 [3; 49
-55].
True, in “Tasnif” Ghozi Olim abandons the classification
published in the journal “Maorif va uksitguvchi” in
1927, but this does not mean that he also abandoned
his ideas about vowels in this article.
Description of simple vowels. He says that “i” is a
narrow, very short sound that comes from the front of
the tongue [4; 5]. In his previous article, he only
mentioned that i
t is a “short and thin consonant.” Ghozi
Olim also emphasizes that this sound has three degrees
of opening in all dialects.
The vowel “u”. We express the labialized vowel i with
this grapheme, he says [4;6]. This is a mistaken idea,
since the vowel i can never be labialized, and moreover,
it cannot answer the question of why the vowel i should
receive the vowel u. In the previous article, he used this
letter to represent the sound represented by the
grapheme ü in the transcription based on the current
Latin alphabet [1;15]. According to him, if it is open in
the first degree, it represents the most narrowly
labialized tip vowel, if it is open in the second degree
(in the middle), if it comes in the last syllable with a
third degree of opening, it represents a sound close to
the labialized vowel e. In our opinion, such thinking is
not appropriate in the present day. phoneticians. In this
case, it would have been sufficient to recognize that it
is a front vowel (in the opposition u
–
ü), but if
necessary, it should have been described from the
point of view of sound correspondence in the speech
process. Apparently, the fact that the law of sound
correspondence was not yet recognized at that time
was the reason for using the concept of proximity to
other vowels (i and e).
The sound “u”. He describes it as a back, narrow, lipped
vowel and admits that it is used in all dialects. In this
respect, he is correct, but it is not difficult to
understand that it is illogical to think about three
degrees of openness (wide) while calling this vowel a
narrow vowel.
When describing the vowel ь
-
he uses the phrase “it
takes on three different pronunciations” and shows its
following features:
this vowel, in his opinion, if it occurs in a closed syllable
and there is no open syllable before or after this closed
syllable, this sound represents the narrowest, shortest,
unlipped back vowel ɯ [4;5]. This description can be
imagined as follows, that is, as if this vowel was used in
the words aqtïm (no open syllable before the closed
s
yllable), qïlgʻan (no open syllable after the closed
syllable). Of course, the absence of an open syllable
before and after a closed syllable could not reveal the
nature of the vowel ï, but rather the use of a short ï
vowel at the back of the tongue is a phonetic feature of
synharmonic dialects;
The vowel ь
-
is explained as “when it occurs at the
beginning or in the middle of a word in an open syllable,
it expresses the sound ъ with a second degree of
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International Journal Of Literature And Languages (ISSN: 2771-2834)
openness” [4;6]. The idea that the vowel transitions to
the vowel ъ and its second degree of openness was
unfounded;
When this vowel occurs in an open syllable at the end
of a word, it expands to the third degree and expresses
the sound (˂9) [4;6], it was difficult to understand what
the idea was about, because we did not know what the
sign (˂9) meant.
The article calls the vowel "a short and thick consonant
that is common to all Uzbek dialects and occurs only in
bold words," and cites the words kïlïq and qïr as
examples. Here, Ghozi Olim discusses the use of the
vowel i in all dialects, which can be interpreted in two
ways: 1) After the Language and Spelling Conference of
1929, when synharmonistic dialects were adopted as
the basis for the Uzbek literary language,
representatives of urban dialects also tried to use this
vowel in their speech. This was the basis for using the
phrase "in all Uzbek dialects"; 2) Ghozi Olim did not
know that the indifferent vowel i (i+ï = i) existed in
urban dialects. In Ghozi Olim's statement: "Uzbek-
speaking Tajiks use this short and thin letter even in
bold words, since () is not a short, thick letter in
Persian" [6;51], Ghozi Olim, although he himself did not
think about it, N. Yangibaeva correctly noted that in this
case it is necessary to talk about an indifferent sound
[1;25]. It is known that in urban dialects, in Uzbek
transcription based on Russian graphics, э was an
indifferent sound represented by the Latin letter и.
The letter "e" (sound). This vowel was described at the
level of current concepts, that is, it is said that it is a
mid-wide, front row, but it is considered labialized
[4;7]. The article does not discuss the labialization of
this vowel. As we have said above, N. Yangibaeva is
right to accuse Ghozi Olim of not understanding the law
of sound correspondence. Unlike his previous article, in
this work, the Kipchaks of Fergana, who live in Kurgan-
Tepe and Ayim, teach that in the speech of the Kipchaks
of Fergana, in the syllables after the first syllable, one
should read Ʃ without reading e. He does not describe
wha
t sound the sign Ʃ represents, but only mentions
that this sign is wider than the vowel e.
The letter “ö” (sound). He says that he used this sign
not for the lipped sound, but for the lipped sign Ʃ. In
the article, he gave a correct assessment of this vow
el.
In this work, he states the idea that in dialects with this
vowel, it starts with a narrow u (trans. u) sound at the
beginning of a word, then expands one by one, and
becomes ꭀ in many of our dialects. From this idea, the
sign ꭀ represents a diphthong
(complex). He does not
provide information about this sign, and no examples
are given of where it appears. In his opinion, this vowel
should be read as a diphthong in the first syllable in
Fergana Kipchak dialects, and as a simple one in
subsequent syllables. There is a certain amount of truth
in this idea, but the concept of the first syllable should
be understood as at the beginning of a word. It has
been said in the literature that the vowel ö is
diphthongized at the beginning of a word in dialects
with synharmonism [5;41]. Another issue. Ghozi Olim
does not think about labial synharmonism, but explains
the situation in which he deviates from it in a different
way: “...in the last syllable (when ө occurs in the
previous syllable),
ө (ө)
should be read. He
also states
that if the vowel ө (ꭀ) occurs again at the end of the
word, it should be read as ө and gives the “or” option:
ө//ө or ө. Such an explanation can also be considered a
characteristic of his time, but it remains unclear to us
how scientific an i
dea it was for linguists of his time.
The vowel “ө”. He says that it is front, wide, and
unlabialized, and that he used it for the sound ө. In fact,
Ghozi Olim distinguished between the vowels ө and ө.
According to him, in the Kipchak dialects, the vowel ө
is
narrower than the sound ө in the syllables that come
after the first syllable, and shorter than the sound ө
wider, but pronounced with an inclination to the sound
of e. This interpretation is fully consistent with current
views. The vowel ә was describ
ed by E.D. Polivanov in
his early articles [7]. In modern literature, the
grapheme ϵ is used for this sound in transcription, and
this vowel is still used in the Namangan dialect. In the
Oghuz dialects (according to him, Khiva-Urgench), the
vowel ә is wider than the vowel ә and narrower than
“ә” and is pronounced with an inclination to the sound
of ә in all syllables [4;7].
In the Karluk dialects (according to him, Turkic-Barlos),
the letter ә represents the sound of ә at the beginning
of a word and the nar
rower sound of Ʃ in the second
syllables [4;7].
No examples of the use of these vowels are given in the
Kipchak, Oghuz, and Karluk dialects.
The vowel (letter) “o”. It is correctly indicated that it is
a back, medium-width, labial sound. He thinks that in
the Tashkent dialect this vowel is indifferent, that is, it
is pronounced between o and ö, which is consistent
with current understandings. He also thinks that in the
Tashkent dialect the sound is in a middle (mikhed)
position in terms of the denominator. We consider it
necessary to dwell on the significance of this idea here,
that is, the fact that the language pronounces it as
middle indicates repetition, but it was difficult to
understand what issue it was necessary to solve by
showing it as mikhed (mixed). In his thoughts about the
use of this vowel in the dialects of the Kipchak dialect,
there are also places that deviate from the imity. He
thinks that it is initially diphthongized at the beginning
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International Journal Of Literature And Languages (ISSN: 2771-2834)
of a word, which is also noted in current literature.
However, in the syllables after the first syllable, it turns
into the vowel ɔ, and its transformation into the vowel
u in many dialects is unfounded and difficult to accept
for discussion.
The vowel “a” (it uses only its written version). The
language is said to have a back, wide, unlabial sound.
This letter represents the vowel ā (ɔ) in our
understanding. Unfortunately, the fact that he cites the
word alma from the Tashkent and Khiva dialects
(languages in the text) as an example causes discussion,
because in the Tashkent dialect this word is
pronounced as ālmä, and in the Khiva dialect as alma.
Therefore, he made a theoretical mistake in this regard.
He emphasizes that this vowel was an independent
phoneme in the Tashkent dialect, and he also considers
it to exist in all dialects. Of course, the coherence of
thought is broken here. The grapheme ɔ was chosen for
this vowel in the article.
The vowel “a”. He calls it a printed letter. This name
was due to the use of the vowel a above for a separate
sound. It is correct to understand this vowel as the
universal Turkic vowel a, but it is far from true to say
that this vowel is not an independent phoneme in any
dialect, but rather, the literature reflects the fact that
this vowel is used in all our dialects with synharmonism.
Ghozi Olim also provides some real and unrealistic
information on this vowel. He noticed that this vowel is
used in all syllables of the words sadaka in the Tashkent
dialect. This is correct, but it is not correct to associate
it only with the Tashkent dialect, because this vowel is
also used as a phonetic variation in our dialects that
have lost synharmonism, sometimes in words with the
consonants қ, гʻ. There is another issue regarding this
vowel, in which if the vowel a occurs between
consonants (in which it is consonantless), it is labialized
and becomes ɒ inverted, and it is used in all dialects.
This idea is not proven by actual examples, and such
ideas are not found in subsequent dialectological
studies. In this work, Ghozi Olim does not dwell on the
sound combinations
–
uv, uv (-üv), -
иу, u, which are
called complex vowels, which are discussed in detail in
the article.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, despite the confusion and ambiguity in
the descriptions given about the vocalism of Uzbek
dialects, studies such as the ones above created by
Ghozi Olim have their place in illuminating the issues of
studying, describing and classifying the phonetic-
phonological system of Uzbek dialects at the beginning
of the 20th century. These views of the writer will need
to be studied in more detail.
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