Chuvash language

**Chuvash** (UK: /ˈtʃuːvɑːʃ/ *CHOO-vahsh*, US: /tʃʊˈvɑːʃ/ *chuu-VAHSH*; Чӑвашла, translit. *Çăvašla*, IPA: [tɕəʋaʃˈla]) is a Turkic language spoken in European Russia, primarily in the Chuvash Republic and adjacent areas. It is the only surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic languages, one of the two principal branches of the Turkic family.

The writing system for the Chuvash language is based on the Cyrillic script, employing all of the letters used in the Russian alphabet and adding four letters of its own: Ӑ, Ӗ, Ҫ and Ӳ.

## Phonology

### Consonants

The consonants are the following (the corresponding Cyrillic letters are in brackets): The stops, sibilants and affricates are voiceless and fortes but become lenes (sounding similar to voiced) in intervocalic position and after liquids, nasals and semivowels. Аннепе sounds like *annebe*, but кушакпа sounds like *kuzhakpa*. However, geminate consonants do not undergo this lenition. Furthermore, the voiced consonants occurring in Russian are used in modern Russian-language loans. Consonants also become palatalized before and after front vowels. However, some words like пульчӑклӑ "dirty", present palatalized consonants without preceding or succeeding front vowels, and should be understood that such are actually phonemic: lʲ ⟨ль⟩, nʲ ⟨нь⟩, tʲ ⟨ть⟩.

* /x/ can have a voiced allophone of [ɣ].

### Vowels

According to Krueger (1961), the Chuvash vowel system is as follows (the precise IPA symbols are chosen based on his description since he uses a different transcription).

András Róna-Tas (1997) provides a somewhat different description, also with a partly idiosyncratic transcription. The following table is based on his version, with additional information from Petrov (2001). Again, the IPA symbols are not directly taken from the works so they could be inaccurate.

The vowels ӑ and ӗ are described as reduced, thereby differing in quantity from the rest. In unstressed positions, they often resemble a schwa or tend to be dropped altogether in fast speech. At times, especially when stressed, they may be somewhat rounded and sound similar to /o/ and /ø/.

Additionally, ɔ (о) occurs in loanwords from Russian where the syllable is stressed in Russian.

### Word accent

The usual rule given in grammars of Chuvash is that the last full (non-reduced) vowel of the word is stressed; if there are no full vowels, the first vowel is stressed. Reduced vowels that precede or follow a stressed full vowel are extremely short and non-prominent. One scholar, Dobrovolsky, however, hypothesises that there is in fact no stress in disyllabic words in which both vowels are reduced.

### Morphonology

#### Vowel harmony

Vowel harmony is the principle by which a native Chuvash word generally incorporates either exclusively back or hard vowels (а, ӑ, у, ы) and exclusively front or soft vowels (е, ӗ, ӳ, и). As such, a Chuvash suffix such as -тен means either -тан or -тен, whichever promotes vowel harmony; a notation such as -тпӗр means either -тпӑр, -тпӗр, again with vowel harmony constituting the deciding factor.

Chuvash has two classes of vowels: *front* and *back* (see the table above). Vowel harmony states that words may not contain both front and back vowels. Therefore, most grammatical suffixes come in front and back forms, e.g. Шупашкар**та**, "in Cheboksary" but кил**те**, "at home".

Two vowels cannot occur in succession.

##### Exceptions

Vowel harmony does not apply for some invariant suffixes such as the plural ending -сем and the 3rd person (possessive or verbal) ending -ӗ, which only have a front version. It also does not occur in loanwords and in a few native Chuvash words (such as анне "mother"). In such words suffixes harmonize with the final vowel; thus Анне**пе** "with the mother".

Compound words are considered separate words with respect to vowel harmony: vowels do not have to harmonize between members of the compound (so forms like сӗтел|пукан "furniture" are permissible).

#### Other processes

The consonant т often alternates with ч before ӗ from original \**i* (ят 'name' - ячӗ 'his name'). There is also an alternation between т (after consonants) and р (after vowels): тетел 'fishing net (nom.)' - dative тетел-те, but пулӑ 'fish (nom.)' - dative пулӑ-ра.

**Consonants**

Voiceless consonant sounds, if they stand in the middle and end of words become voiced:

Geminated voiceless consonants are not voiced:

*ikkĕ - two, piççe - brother, sakkăr - eight, appa - sister.*

## References

1. ↑ András Róna-Tas. Nutshell Chuvash. *Erasmus Mundus Intensive Program Turkic languages and cultures in Europe (TLCE)*.
2. ↑ Dobrovolsky (1999), p. 539.
3. ↑ Dobrovolsky (1999), p. 541.
4. ↑ Rona-Tas 1997: 3
5. ↑ Róna-Tas (1997: 4)