Teleut language: articulatory patterns of mediolingual consonants

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of articulatory settings of the mediolingual consonants of the Teleut language – one of the Turkic ethnic groups of Southern Siberia. The purpose of the study is the description of the pronunciation of the consonant patterns and the identification of specificity of the Teleut articulatory acoustic base (AAB) on the background of AAB of native speaker of territorial sub-dialects of Altai-Kizhi dialect (Ongudai, Shebalin and Ust-Kan), and the language of Telengits. Objective instrumental somatic data were obtained by the method of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Comparison of pronouncing settings of idioms, genetically related and typologically close, indicates both the commonality of AAB of native speakers, and their significant differences. A number of characteristics of the Teleut mediolingual consonants find affinity with the Ongudai settings – classic for this local class of articulations, in contrast to Telengit, Ust-Kan and Shebalin which typically shift the obstacles forward or backward.
On the other hand, shows the similarity of Teleut and Telengit AAB manifested in high tension of the vocal apparatus, total labialization and lack of nasalization. In the perspective, the presented experimental-phonetic material in conjunction with the historical and linguistic data can be used to reconstruct the history of languages and ethnos.