Evidentiality in Uzbek and Kazakh

 
Uzbek 
Although the Latin alphabet is official in Uzbekistan, the Cyrillic alphabet is found in 
older works and is still in common use. Cyrillic texts have been transliterated. The 
Uzbek alphabet and approximate phonetic correspondences are found in Table 1. 
Table 1: The Uzbek Latin Alphabet 
/a,æ/
 
/b/ 

/d/ 
/e/ 
/f/ 
/g/ 
/h/ 
/i,ɨ/ 
/dʒ, ʒ/ 
/k/ 
/l/ 
/m/ 
/n/ 
/ɒ/ 
/p/ 
/q/ 
/r/ 
/s/ 
/t/ 
/u,y/ 
/v,w/ 
/x/ 
/j/ 
/z/ 
/o, ø/ 
/ɣ/ 
/tʃ/ 
/ʃ/ 
/ŋ/ <’> /ʔ,Ø/ 
 
Standard Uzbek does not exhibit much of the vowel harmony or consonant assimilations 
typical of other Turkic languages. The only commonly encountered phonological process 
in Uzbek is the assimilation of /g/ (as in the dative suffix -ga), which changes to /k/ after 
/k/ (hakkok-ka - 'to the jeweler'), and to /q/ after /q/ (yoq-qa - 'to the side'). When 
following /g'/, both sounds change to /q/ (tog'- 'mountain' ∼ toq-qa- 'to the mountain'). 
 
Kazakh 
Kazakh is written in the Cyrillic script, so it has been necessary to transliterate data into 
the Latin script. For the purposes of this work, I have employed a system that is 
commonly used in works on the Turkic languages. Table 2 provides the native Cyrillic 

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graphemes, the Latin transliteration, and their corresponding phonemes in IPA (from 
Vajda 1994). 
Table 2: Kazakh Transliteration System 
Аа  /a/
 
ƏӘəә <ä> /æ/ 
Бб  /b/ 
Вв* /v/ 
Гг  /g/ 
Ғғ <ğ> /ɣ/ 
Дд  /d/ 
Ее  /jɪ/ 
Ёё* <ë> /jɔ/ 
Жж <ž> /ʒ/ 
Зз  /z/ 
Ии  /ɪj,ǝj/ 
Йй  /j/ 
Кк  /k/ 
Ққ  /q/ 
Лл  /l/ 
Мм  /m/ 
Нн  /n/ 
Ңң <ŋ> /ŋ/ 
Оо  /wʊ/ 
Өө <ö> /wʉ/ 
Пп 
/p/ 
Рр  /r/ 
Сс  /s/ 
Тт  /t/ 
Уу  /w,ʊw,ʉw/ 
Ұұ  /ʊ/ 
Үү <ü> /ʉ/ 
Фф  /f/ 
Хх  /q,χ/ 
Һһ  /h/ 
Цц* /ts/ 
Чч* <č> /tʃ/ 
Шш <š> /ʃ/ 
Щщ* <šč> /ʃtʃ/ Ъъ* <”> † 
Ыы <ï> /ǝ/ 
Іі  /ɪ/ 
Ьь* <’> ‡ 
Ээ* <ė> /ɛ/ 
Юю  /jʊ,jʉ/ 
Яя  /ja/ 
 
 
*Found only in Russian loans 
† Russian “hard sign” 
‡ Russian “soft sign” 
 
It is customary in Turcological literature to represent underspecified vowels and 
assimilating consonants with archiphonemes, which are represented with capital letters.
Table 3 shows the symbols used to represent these archiphonemes in Kazakh, along with 
their possible realizations. See Vajda (1994) for further details on the exact processes 
involved. 
Table 3: Kazakh Archiphonemes 
Consonants
 
D → d, t 
G → g, ğ, k, q 
L → l, d, t 
M → m, b, p 
N → n, d, t 
Vowels 
A → a, e 
I → i, ï 
 

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