Vowels There exist several interpretations of the Tatar vowel phonemic inventory. In total Tatar has nine or ten native vowels, and three or four loaned vowels (mainly in Russian loanwords). According to
Baskakov (1988) Tatar has only two vowel heights,
high and
low. There are two low vowels,
front and
back, while there are eight high vowels: front and back,
round (R+) and unround (R−), normal and short (or reduced). }
Consonants ;Notes: : The phonemes , , , , , are only found in loanwords. occurs more commonly in loanwords, but is also found in native words, e.g.
yafraq 'leaf'. , , , may be substituted with the corresponding native consonants , , , by some Tatars. : and are the dialectal Western (Mişär) pronunciations of
җ⟨
c⟩ and
ч⟨
ç⟩, the latter are in the literary standard and in the Central (Kazan) dialect. is the variant of
ч⟨
ç⟩ as pronounced in the Eastern (Siberian) dialects and some Western (Mişär) dialects. Both and are also used in Russian loanwords (the latter written
ц). : and are usually considered allophones of and in the environment of back vowels, so they are never written in the Tatar Cyrillic orthography in native words, and only rarely in loanwords with
къ and
гъ. However, and also appear before front in Perso-Arabic loanwords which may indicate the phonemic status of these uvular consonants.
Palatalization Tatar consonants usually undergo slight
palatalization before front vowels. However, this
allophony is not significant and does not constitute a phonemic status. This differs from Russian where palatalized consonants are not
allophones but
phonemes on their own. There are a number of Russian loanwords which have palatalized consonants in Russian and are thus written the same in Tatar (often with the "soft sign"
ь). The Tatar standard pronunciation also requires palatalization in such loanwords; however, some Tatar may pronounce them non-palatalized.
Syllables In native words there are six types of syllables (
Consonant,
Vowel,
Sonorant): • V (
ı-lıs,
u-ra,
ö-rä) • VC (
at-law,
el-geç,
ir-kä) • CV (
qa-la,
ki-ä,
su-la) • CVC (
bar-sa,
sız-law,
köç-le,
qoş-çıq) • VSC (
ant-lar,
äyt-te,
ilt-kän) • CVSC (
tört-te,
qart-lar,
qayt-qan) Loanwords allow other types: CSV (
gra-mota), CSVC (käs-
trül), etc.
Prosody Stress is usually on the final syllable. However, some suffixes cannot be stressed, so the stress shifts to the syllable before that suffix, even if the stressed syllable is the third or fourth from the end. A number of Tatar words and grammatical forms have the natural stress on the first syllable. Loanwords, mainly from Russian, usually preserve their original stress (unless the original stress is on the last syllable, in such a case the stress in Tatar shifts to suffixes as usual, e.g.
sovét >
sovetlár >
sovetlarğá).
Phonetic alterations Tatar
phonotactics dictate many pronunciation changes which are not reflected in the orthography. • Unrounded vowels
ı and
e become rounded after
o or
ö: ::коры/
qorı > [qoro] ::борын/
borın > [boron] ::көзге/
közge > [közgö] ::соры/
sorı > [soro] • Nasals are
assimilated to the following stops: ::унбер/
unber > [umber] ::менгеч/
mengeç > [meñgeç] • Stops are
assimilated to the preceding nasals (this is reflected in writing): ::урманнар/
urmannar ( [küssez] • Unstressed vowels may be
syncopated or
reduced: ::урыны/
urını> [urnı] ::килене/
kilene > [kilne] • Vowels may also be
elided: ::кара урман/
qara urman > [qarurman] ::килә иде/
kilä ide > [kiläyde] ::туры урам/
turı uram > [tururam] ::була алмыйм/
bula almıym > [bulalmıym] • In
consonant clusters longer than two
phones,
ı or
e (whichever is dictated by
vowel harmony) is inserted into speech as an
epenthetic vowel. ::банк/
bank > [bañqı] • Final
consonant clusters are simplified: ::артист/
artist > [artis] •
Final devoicing is also frequent: ::табиб/
tabib > [tabip] == Grammar ==