Article

Name: The Tegi Khanty idiom and selected issues of the vowel system (a comparative analysis with Kazym Khanty dialect)

Authors: V. A. Ivanov, R. I. Idrisov

Udmurt Institute of History, Language and Literature of Udmurt Federal Research Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Izhevsk, Russia; Independent researcher, Moscow, Russia

In the section Фонетика

Abstract:

This paper presents a description and comparative analysis of the vowel phoneme systems of two Khanty idioms: the Tegi idiom and the Kazym dialect of the West Khanty dialectal group. The study is based on original field data collected in the village of Tegi in 2010–2012 and in Kazym in 2018, both located in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug–Yugra. Emphasis is placed on defining the term “Tegi idiom,” and the socio- and ethnolinguistic circumstances within the Tegi village. The idiom is analyzed in comparison to the well-documented Kazym dialect, focusing on vowel phoneme inventory, phonetic realization, and perceptual distinctiveness. Although both idioms exhibit a nine-vowel system with comparable syllabic distribution, substantial differences exist in their phonetic implementation, especially regarding the realization of back rounded vowels. Acoustic analysis reveals rounded vowels in Tegi Khanty to be consistently articulated as back vowels, unlike the central-back distinction seen in Kazym Khanty. Additionally, the vowel /ө/ in Tegi Khanty displays a diphthong-like articulatory and acoustic structure. Psychoacoustic experiments with native speakers confirm that distinctions among back rounded vowels are perceptually significant, thus supporting their phonemic status. The study highlights inconsistencies in transcription systems across prior descriptions, advocating for the adoption of modern phonemic Cyrillic orthography to promote comparability across studies. These inconsistencies could indicate significant phonetic variation in vowel pronunciation among dialects, speakers, and even within individual speech patterns. The fieldwork often presents such inconsistencies, including the variable pronunciations of specific lexical items, showing a complex sound change pattern within the Tegi idiom.

Keywords: Khanty language, dialect of Kazym, idiom of Tegi, phonetics, vowels, writing systems, linguistic fieldwork

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