Phonotactics Azerbaijani
phonotactics is similar to that of other Oghuz Turkic languages, except: •
Trimoraic syllables with long vowels are permissible. • There is an ongoing
metathesis of neighboring consonants in a word. Speakers tend to reorder consonants in the order of decreasing sonority and back-to-front (for example, iləri becomes irəli, köprü becomes körpü, topraq becomes torpaq). Some of the metatheses are so common in the educated speech that they are reflected in orthography (all the above examples are like that). This phenomenon is more common in rural dialects but observed even in educated young urban speakers, but noticeably absent from some Southern dialects. • Intramorpheme q becomes .
Consonants • Outside Iran, the sound is used only in loanwords; the historical unpalatalized became voiced to , and was only preserved in Iran. • and are realised as and respectively in the areas around Tabriz and to the west, south and southwest of
Tabriz (including
Kirkuk in Iraq); in the
Nakhchivan and
Ayrum dialects, in
Cəbrayil and some Caspian coastal dialects;. • Sounds and may also be recognized as separate phonemic sounds in the Tabrizi and southern dialects. • In most dialects of Azerbaijani, is realized as when it is found in the
syllabic coda or is preceded by a
voiceless consonant (as in 'bread'; 'eighty'). • exists in the Kirkuk dialect as an
allophone of in
Arabic loanwords. • In colloquial speech, (but not intramorpheme transformed from ) is usually pronounced as
Dialectal consonants Works on Azerbaijani dialectology use the following notations for dialectal consonants: • Ⱪ ⱪ— • X' x'— • Ŋ ŋ— • Ц ц— • Dz dz— • Ž ž— • W w— Examples: • —ⱪış • —üzüx' • —ataŋın • —цay • —dzan • —əžəli • —dowşan • —töwlə
Vowels The vowels of the Azerbaijani are, in alphabetical order, '
, ' , '
, ' , '
, ' , '
, ' , '''' . The typical phonetic quality of South Azerbaijani vowels is as follows: • are close to cardinal . • The F1 and F2 formant frequencies overlap for and . Their
acoustic quality is more or less close-mid central . The main role in the distinction of two vowels is played by the different F3 frequencies in audition, and rounding in articulation. Phonologically, however, they are more distinct: is phonologically a mid front rounded vowel , the front counterpart of and the rounded counterpart of . is phonologically a close back unrounded vowel , the back counterpart of and the unrounded counterpart of . • The other mid vowels are closer to close-mid than open-mid . • is phonetically near-open back .
Diphthongs The modern Azerbaijani Latin alphabet contains the digraphs and '''' to represent diphthongs present in the language, and the pronunciation of diphthongs is today accepted as the norm in the orthophony of Azerbaijani. Despite this, the number and even the existence of diphthongs in Azerbaijani has been disputed, with some linguists, such as , arguing that they are non-phonemic. Damirchizade's view was challenged by others, such as , who argued that Damirchizade was taking orthography as the basis of his judgement, rather than its phonetic value. According to Akhundov, Azerbaijani contains two diphthongs, and , represented by and '
in the alphabet, both of which are phonemic due to their contrast with and , represented by and '. In some cases, a non-syllabic can also be pronounced after the aforementioned diphthongs, to form and , the rules of which are as follows: • If the letter precedes and then , forming , it should be pronounced as , e.g.
sovurmaq, . • If the letter precedes and then any consonant, it should be pronounced as , with the pronunciation of the being optional, e.g.
dovşan, . • If the letter precedes and then any
unvoiced consonant, it should be pronounced as , e.g.
cövhər, . • If the letter precedes and then any
voiced consonant, it should be pronounced as , with the pronunciation of the being optional, e.g.
tövbə, . Modern linguists who have examined Azerbaijani's vowel system almost unanimously have recognised that diphthongs are phonetically produced in speech. == Writing systems ==