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A thesis on some of the regional dialects of Turkey.
Regional Dialects of TurkishThis work is a limited attempt to describe the properties of a regional dialect spoken in Çanakkale, and a comparison of the speeches of two informants from the same region to find out the effects of the environment. 1 IntroductionWho are you? How old are you? Where are you from? What do you do? What are you doing now? We would only have to speak, to provide our interrogator with innumerable clues about our personal history and social identity. The linguistic signal unintentionally transmit about ourselves every moment of our waking day are highly distinctive and discriminating. More than anything else, language shows we belong, providing the most natural badge, or symbol of public and private identity. As for private identity we can mention physical identity, psychological identity, and geographical identity This work concentrates on the geographical identity on the basis of regional dialects. In analysing the language in this work, I deliberately avoid from dealing with language functions for two main reasons: First, listing and arranging the language functions is not only difficult, but also so complicated that it is nearly impossible to use as criterion available for every variety I study. Secondly, the number of the subjects of my study and the amount of data I collected prevent me from dealing with language functions. For these reasons I limited my study by phonological and lexical differences. The study includes two types of information. My observations in my own village (the place where I was born and moved in my 2) and records of two tales told by two old women from a village . From the view point of purity of a language spoken in a village, I was lucky enough to access Mrs Kalkan, an old woman in 88, who lives with her husband in a small ho use in a suburb area without a TV set. On the other hand, Mrs Akin (67) stands for an example of a person who has been living in a town for 15 years under the influence of mass media. I tried to explore regional language differences from the viewpoint of phonological and lexical differences in comparison with standard Turkish. Moreover, I wanted to find out the effects of urbanisation and mass media on language use by comparing the languages spoken by two informants who has been living in different environments. To make some comparisons I studied Turkish Regional Dialects. During that study I benefited much from Kiziltan (1989), Korkmaz (1956), and (Bozkurt:1981) 2. Background Of The IssueAccording to Crystal there seems to be little clear relationship between speech and such physical characteristics as height, weight, head size and shape. (1987:18) That there is some correlation is evident from our surprise when we hear a large , aft person come out with a thin, high-pitched voice. There is a general expectation that size relates to loudness and pitch depth. However, there is no conclusive way of predicting from physical appearance alone whether a person's vocal range is going to be soprano, contralto, tenor, or bass. (Ibid.) As for sex, as another factor in relation with physical identity, phonetic differences are the most obvious measures. Crystal mentions that pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and context of use can all be affected. (1987:21) The most widely recognised features of linguistic identity are those that point to the geographical origins of the speaker, that is, features of regional dialect, which prompt us to ask the question Where are they from. People often use a language to signal their membership of particular groups. Ethnicity and the kinds of social networks people belong to turn out to be important dimensions of identity in many communities.(Holmes 1992:133) Variation in speech according to the particular area where a speaker comes from is called REGIONAL VARIATION.(Richards et al 1992:321) This variation may occur with respect to pronunciation, vocabulary, or syntax, and may even be very distinctive local colourings in the language which you notice as you move form one location to another.(Wardhaugh 1986:41) But how clear are the boundaries between varieties still remains the fundamental question.( Hudson 1980:38) Besides, Fasold indicates that it is difficult to measure the change, especially the phonological one, for it requires some technical devices such as sonograph, etc. (1990:228-29) The social and linguistic reason for the development of regional differences of this type are complex, and by no means completely understood. They are clearly the result of language changes in different ways in different places, but the actual process of linguistic change is something which is known very little. (Trudgill 1974:157) Regional variety might be between different nations. Holmes calls such variety as International Variation (1992:134) Like English, Turkish is a language spoken in many nations. From that viewpoint, we can mention International Variations of Turkish. One source that I could access explores the variations among Turkey Turkish, Turkmen, Yakut, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Tatar and Chuvash from the viewpoints of morphology and syntax. (Zeynalov 1975: Translated into Standard Turkish by Yusuf Gedikli in 1993) Introduction written by Gedikli includes a bibliography on studies about Turks in Turkey and outside of Turkey. The other type of regional variety defined by Holmes is Intra-national Variety. By this term he not only refers to different accents, but also to distinguishing forms of grammatical uses, vocabulary items as well as pronunciation. (1992:137) On the other hand, Fromkin and Rodman make the following claim: With all such differences we still are able to understand the speakers of another dialect. Even though dialects differ as to pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntactic rules, these are minor differences when compared with the totality of grammar. The largest part of the vocabulary, the sound-meaning relations of the words, and the syntactic rules are shared, that is why the dialects are mutually intelligible. (1978:318) In addition to the questions Who are you? and Where are you from?, which have been addressed from a linguistic viewpoint in the lines above, there is also another question which is What are you? in the eyes of the society to which you belong. One of the chief forms of sociolinguistic identity derives from the way in which people are organised into hierarchically ordered social groups, or classes. These classes are combinations of people with similar social or economic characteristics. For that reason, I should state that there are close relationship between regional and social dialects in my work, for in most cases those who live in rural areas generally belong to lower class. 3. Short Review Of Turkish Regional DialectsIn this section some examples of regional dialects of Turkish are given as examples. 1.Eastern Dialectsa) Erzincan Dialect:From the viewpoint of pronunciation, Erzincan dialect differs form the other dialects in that /h/ sound is used instead of /k/ sound. For example;
tohtor instead of doktor
Besides, long ä is used commonly. The /a/ sound changes into /i/ or /e/ sound.
çıgır instead of çagır The /i/ sound changes into /e/ sound.
Ehsan instead of İhsan The /o/ sound changes into /u/ sound.
buynuz instead of boynuz The /u/, /ü/ sounds changes into /o/,/ö/ sounds.
hökümet instead of hükümet Prothesis, the addition of a sound or syllable at the beginning of a word, can be seen in this dialect. [Ø → /i/, /u/, /ü/ ] For example;
ilâzim instead of lâzim When there is a consonant between two vowels, these two vowels
are articulated in a long manner.
baa instead of bana If one of the consonants after a vowel which drops, the vowel
before tha lost consonant becomes longer.
aanatmah instead of anlatmak In this dialect, consonant loss is usually seen.
b→m Moreover, metathesis, the transposition of letters, syllables,
or sounds in a word, also plays an important role in this dialect. Speech sound
exchange follows the rule like S1S2→ S2S1.
irbik instead of ibrik Finally, maybe due to the economy rule of language, short
forms are preferred. As a result, double consonants become single.
Mâzez instead of Muazzez 2) Elazig DialectInfluence of Azerbaijani is eminent in this dialect.
gardaş instead of kardeş Sometimes, sounds are added in the middle of the words, such as yalıŋız instead of yalnız. The following sound changes are common in the Elazig dialect.
/m/→ /n/ Metathesis is also seen in this dialect also. For example, they
say buğlur instead of bulgur
maraba instead of merhaba Another characteristics of this dialect is the change in
vocabulary. There are many local words in this dialect. anıko → anne (3) Malatya DialectThe dialect spoken in this district has the effects of Azarbaijani, Arabic and the other dialects spoken in the eastern part of Turkey. The /a/ sound changes into /e/ sound.
emice instead of amca The /a/ sound changes into /i/ sound. burıya instead of buraya The /e/ sound changes into /a/ sound. assas instead of esas The /e/ sound changes into /i/ sound. isgile instead of iskele The /ı/ sound changes into /i/ sound. diş instead of dış The /i/ sound changes into /a/ sound. İbraham instead of İbrahim The /i/ sound changes into /e/ sound. şeher instead of şehir The /u/ sound changes into /ü/ sound. büçuh instead of buçuk The /ü/ sound changes into /ö/ sound. böyük instead of büyük Besides, addition of vowels are seen in great deal in this dialect. yalanız instead of yalnız Addition of vowel can be can be seen at the beginning or at the end of the word. So paragoge (the addition of a sound or group of sounds at the end of a word, as in whilst or the non-standard pronunciation of height as height-th.) and prothesis are seen widely in this dialect. Hamido instead of Hamit As for consonants, the following consonant changes are common in this dialect. The initial /k/ sound changes into /g/ sound. gar instead of kar The /ç/ sound changes into /c/ sound. cizme instead of çizme The /ç/ sound changes into /ş/ sound. işmek instead of içmek The /ğ/ sound changes into /h/ sound. aşahtan instead of aşağıdan The /k/ sound changes into /h/ sound. arhadaş instead of arkadaş The /l/ sound changes into /n/ sound. ormannık instead of ormanlık The /p/ sound changes into /b/ sound. barmah instead of parmak The /s/ sound changes into /z/ sound. zopa instead of sopa The /t/ sound changes into /d/ sound. daş instead of taş Due to the phonological and lexical differences, this dialect sounds as a different language. Here are some example sentences uttered in this dialect:
2. Southern DialectsGaziantep DialectAs in the other dialects, there are some phonologic differences in Gaziantep Dialect. Some sound changes take place. Some examples of them are as follows. The /a/ sound changes into /e/ sound. birez instead of biraz The /c/ sound changes into /ç/ sound. yalançı instead of yalancı The /d/ sound changes into /t/ sound. tiken instead of diken The /e/ sound changes into /a/ sound. alma instead of elma The /f/ sound changes into /v/ sound. uvak instead of ufak The /m/ sound changes into /n/ or /l/ sound. konşu instead of komşu The /m/ sound changes into /ŋ/ sound. doŋuz instead of domuz The /n/ sound changes into /l/ sound. lem instead of nem In this dialect, prothesis is also seen. Iramazan instead of Ramazan Also there is metathesis in the dialect. pehriz instead of perhiz Besides, word-initial consonant addition is common. hayva instead of ayva When some consonant clusters occur at the end of the words, word-final consonant drops generally. dos instead of dost b) Antalya DialectAntalya dialect is remarkable in its lexical differences. Followings are the examples of local vocabulary: cerme → büyük su testisi 3. Western Dialects(a) Denizli DialectFrom the viewpoint of phonological differences, long vowels are common in Denizli dialect, because loss of a consonant and contradiction of vowels are compansated by this way. The /ā/ sound: çıkākana instead of çıkarken The /ē/ sound: edēdi instead of ederdi The /ī/ sound: savcīna instead of savcıyla The /i/ sound: eri instead of eğri The /ō/ sound: ōlan instead of oğlan The /ö/ sound: özüz instead of öksüz The /ū/ sound: ūraş instead of ugraş The /ü/ sound: kötülümden instead of kötülüğümden Another aspect of Denizli dialect is that vowels are pronounced in a long manner. (Here, long forms of the sounds are represented by doubling the vowel) The /a/ sound changes into /aa/ çikaamiyan instead of çikarmayan The /i/ sound changes into /ii/ bii instead of bir The /e/ sound changes into /ee/ edeesin instead of edersin The /o/ sound changes into /oo/ tooba instead of torba The /u/ sound changes into /uu/ otuuduk instead of oturduk As for consonant changes, the /t/ sound changes into /d/. But this sound change takes place before back and front vowels only before the sounds /a/ and /e/ sounds. It should be noted that this change does not occur with other sounds. dabanca instead of tabanca Another characteristic of Denizli dialect is the change of the /k/ sound into /g/ sound as it is seen in the examples below: gaba instead of kaba In Denizli dialect, medial consonant change also occurs. akisdila instead of akistilar Besides, there is final consonant change in this dialect. adamiŋ instead of adamin As for difference in local vocabulary items, the followings are remarkable in Denizli dialect: ispirte → kibrit Besides, there are few syntactic differences in this dialect, such as Nerden gelip bag? → Nereden geliyorsun? b) Kütahya DialectKütahya dialect is distinguishable in its pronunciation. Umlaut, (a mark used as a diacritic over a vowel, as ä, ö, ü, to indicate a vowel sound different from that of the letter without the diacritic) is seen in this dialect. arkides instead of arkadas 4. Central Anatolian Dialecta) Ankara DialectAnkara dialect shows the following phonological differences: /k/ → /g/ sound change: gardeş instead of kardeş; /k/ → /h/ sound change: ahilli instead of akilli /i/ → /e/ sound change: getmiş instead of gitmiş /i/ → /i/ sound change: arasi instead of arasi Cluster change: bunnar instead of bunlar In this dialect deletion of sound in the word can be seen. iyolur instead of iyi olur Conversely, sound addition in the word is also possible in the dialect. ikicigi instead of ikisi Some examples of regional vocabulary are: ababure → kavun 4. Methoda)Informants and Data Collection Procedure:In this work three types of data were collected from three different sources. Data related to regional vocabulary used in villages of Yenişehir (Çelebiköy, Papatya, Günece, Yarhisar) were collected various residents of different age and sex. Collection procedure was conscious listening to their speech and note-taking. The example of the speaker of a pure regional dialect was Mrs Ayşe Kalkan who is 88 year-old woman. She has been living in a suburb of Çan, a town in Çanakkale. She is living with her husband and interestingly, she does not have a TV set. As far as she remembered, she was born in a plateau near Lapseki and moved to Çan when she was six. She doesn't know much about her ancestors. I wanted her to tell a folk tale, and recorded it. (See Appendix A) Mrs Rasime Akin (67) is also a resident in Çan, but she is not living in a suburb, instead, she is living in an apartment with his son who is a teacher. They have TV set, she interacts with her neighbours who speaks standard Turkish. She is famous for her tales. I also wanted her to tell a folk tale and recorded it. (See Appendix B) Milroy's following claims accounts for the reason why I recorded folk tales. According to Milroy, it is a matter of common observation that on different occasion a speaker will use different types of language, dependent not only on his or her desire to convey meanings of irony, hostility, deference on intimacy , but also on a range contextual factors. (1987:36) Besides, I deliberately chose old people who live (or who are from) villages. Because, Yule states that, informants in many dialect surveys tend to be non-mobile, older, rural, male (?) speakers. Such speakers were selected because it was believed that they were less likely to have influences from outside the region in their speech. (1985:182) Halliday supports that view by claiming that the younger speakers no longer focused on the village, and so in their speech they were already moving away from the more highly differentiated forms of the village dialect. (1978:155) b) Data AnalysisAs a first step recorded data are transcribed. During that stage I couldn't use international phonetic alphabet, for the data I compared with was not in this form. (With the exception of nasal /ŋ/ sound) Then the texts were loaded into computer in text-only format and word lists were obtained. (For word lists, see Appendices C and D) This time I had to use /n/ instead of /ŋ/ due to computer program limitations. Listing process was achieved by the computer program called Concordancer for Windows version 2.0 (July 1996) which was programmed by Zdenek Martinek from the University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic. The program can build word lists and filter written text by using five different criteria that may be a single character, or a word or a couple of words As a final step, words are examined from the viewpoints of phonological properties and their regional meanings. 5 Findings and Discussiona)Vocabulary Differences in Yenişehir district:In this dialect, following words are common:
Regional instead of National At first sight it is remarkable that there are some onomatopoeic words such as şıpdık, angırt cungurt and toktoku b) Analysis of the Speech of Kalkan:The regional vocabulary she uses: Regional instead of National *According to Standard Turkish tüymek is the slang form of kaçmak - (TDK Türkçe sözlük) As for phonological characteristics of her speech: /r/ sound deletion at the end of the base (not root) of the words ending in /r/
açılmıyo instead of açılmıyor But the /r/ sound is pronounced when it is the part of the word. çamaşır It is interesting that sometimes she pronounced the /r/ sound when it is in verb of hast(definition is from Koç (1994:327) =tezlik fiili)
geçiniveriyo The bilabial /p/ sound changes into /b/ sound as it is in consonant mutation.
barmak instead of parmak Similarly, the /k/ sound changes into /g/ sound. The same change is seen in Azerbaijani Dialect too. gız instead of kız Conversely, in some words, the /k/ sound changes into /g/ sounds. kölge instead of gölge The /i/ and /e/ sounds change into /i/ and /a/ sounds. hızmat instead of hizmet In the other hand, the /e/ sound changes into /i/ sound. yimek instead of yemek The /ü/ sound changes into /ö/ sound. gözel instead of güzel The /a/ sound changes into /u/ sound. buba instead of baba But sometimes, the /u/ sound changes into /a/ sound: yokara instead of yukarı(ya) Also there is prothesis, the addition of a sound or syllable at the beginning of a word, in some of her words. ileş instead of leş The /t/ sound changes into /d/ sound duz instead of tuz The /o/ sound changes into /u/ sound. unu instead of onu Interestingly, she pronounces the /p/ sound preceding /m/ sound as /m/ sound as it is double m. yamma instead of yapma In some words, she does not pronounce the /g/ sound, but instead of the preceding sound is prolonged. bacaani instead of bacağını Finally the /ŋ/ sound is very common instead of /n/ From the viewpoint of syntax, Kalkan's utterances shows serious deviance from standard sentence constructions, but in my opinion most of them stem from her old age. As Crystal states, there are some general signs of age. Speech rates slows, and fluency may be more inconsistent. Hearing deteriorates, especially after the early fifties. Weakening faculties of memory and attention may affect the ability to comprehend complex speech patterns. On the other hand vocabulary awareness may continue to grow, as many stylistic ability -skills in narration, for example. And grammatical ability seems to be little affected (1987:19) c) Analysis of the Speech of Akin:In comparison with Kalkan's speech, Akin's speech shows less deviancy. I should note that, she pronounce the same word in different manners during her speech. This might be due to monitoring her utterances. For example, her speech includes the word sonra eight times. Five times she pronounced as soona, and three times she pronounces the same word as sonra The case is the same for the pronunciation of the /g/ and /k/ sounds. Analysis of her text indicates that she produced /k/ sound while pronouncing the word baskaldırmış. But when pronouncing the word kaldırmış, she produced /g/ sound, and her utterance became galdırmış Besides, pronunciation of the following words do not indicate dialect differences. kalmış kılıç kabuk She pronounce /-nl/ cluster as double /n/ bunnar instead of bunlar The case is the same for the cluster /yl/. hanımınna instead of hanımıyla Finally, although Akin's speech indicates some deviations from
Standard Turkish, her pronunciation is affected by the environment she
lives in. 6 ConclusionMost of the languages spoken today have some varieties. That is, languages have dialects which are systematic, expressive and productive. Turkish also has some regional dialects most of which have some phonological and lexical differences. In Turkey, our standard dialect is Istanbul dialect, and during compulsory primary education most of the children are exposed to this standard variety. Besides, mass media has a great influence on the population. Moreover, the increasing number immigrants especially from Eastern part of country to the crowded cities form a melting pot of different dialects of Turkish. In some cases a regional dialect is considered a type of identity. To me, Sabanci's dialect is the indication of an identity of this type. Apart from such intended purposes, today there are people who speak their regional dialects. As Bursa and Çanakkale (my study field) are concerned, such variety is usually to be found spoken only by the oldest inhabitants. Because, the younger speakers no longer focused on the village, and so in their speech they were already moving away from the more highly differentiated forms of the village dialect. For example, in the village where I was born all primary school children are being transported to the town every day. The new generation is still dealing with agriculture, but they are seeking ways to export the product. Engineers are visiting the village to provide maintenance service to milking machines. Halliday states that the urban 'speech community' is a heterogenous unit, showing diversity not only between one individual and another but also within one individual. And this leads us to recognise a basic fact about urban speech: that the language itself is variable. (1978:155) In this work I tried to analyse the regional dialect spoken in Çanakkale and Bursa, and I deliberately limited the language analysis by phonological and lexical differences. As for dialect spoken in Bursa district, I recorded some samples of vocabulary used in my village. As for Çanakkale dialect, I found an informant who lives in an isolated environment from the viewpoint of different language exposure. Besides, I found another informant who are under the exposure of standard dialect. I compared analyses of their speeches. I found that the one who is under the influence of environment in which standard variety is spoken has the influence of standard variety. ReferencesBozkurt, M.Fuat (1981) Anadolu Agizlari Unpublished Handouts of Lectures Ege Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Appendix A - Transcription of Kalkan's SpeechBi vaamış, bi yogmuş. APPENDIX B - Transcription of Akın's Speech
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