Features of the Bashkir vocalism system

The article describes the features of the system of vowels of the Bashkir language. The historiography of the study of Bashkir vocalism is briefly presented. The first classifications of M. M. Bilyalov (1928) and N. K. Dmitriev (1948). Traditionally, in the modern Bashkir literary language, there are nine primordial vowel phonemes: [a], [o], [y], [i], [e], [ә], [ө], [ү], [y]. In addition to the primordial vowel phonemes, borrowed vowels [o], [e], [s] in such words as shop, antenna, factory, motor, music, rear, etc. function in the Bashkir language. The main content of the article is devoted to historical processes that occurred in the phonetic system of the Bashkir language. In the process of evolution, the system of vowels of the Bashkir language has undergone a transformation from the pre-Turkic period - the expansion of narrow and narrowing wide: * i> e, * e> a d, * o> u, * u> o, * ö> ү, * ü> ө. Scientists have various theories on this issue. The transformations affected not all vowels of the Bashkir language, for example, the vowels “a” and “s” practically did not change: * a> a, ә, * ï> s. The phoneme [ә] has various paths of origin. The article also describes the main allophones of the phoneme [a]: labialized and pharyngalized variants. It should be noted that in the dialects of the Bashkir language different degrees of bluntness “a” are realized: from moderate labialization to full transition to “o”. Regarding the origin of the labialized a°, scientists express various hypotheses: some consider it the heritage of the Bulgarian language, others consider the Finno-Ugric (Mari). In our opinion, one thing is clear that the Bashkirs “acquired” labialization in the Urals. The phonetic phenomena of the modern Bashkir language associated with the system of vowels: synharmonism, reduction, prosthesis, epenthesis, elision are presented in theses.