Contact phenomena at phonological level in Gostivar Turkish

© Şirin Tufan

GT = Gostivar Turkish
ST = Standard Turkish
MAC = Macedonian
ALB = Albanian

Borrowing of /ts/

A dental-alveolar affricate /ts/ is borrowed from either Macedonian or Albanian, since it exists in the consonant systems of both. It is found not only in loan words (Albanian: [Listen to example] tsapo 'goat', Macedonian: [Listen to example] tsevka 'pipe', but also in borrowed affixes, e.g. the Macedonian -itsa, e.g. GT: [Listen to example] daytsa 'aunt(maternal uncle's wife)'. It also occurs in "native words" as [Listen to example] tsıs 'shut up' (Tr. [Listen to example] sus), [Listen to example] yatsi 'evening prayer' (Tr. [Listen to example] yatsï, where /t/ and /s/ are pronounced as separate phonemes), /ts/ does not exist in Ottoman or Standard Turkish.

Consonant Clusters

In Standard Turkish there are no consonant clusters syllable-initially, however CCV in GT is present. Seems to be a language contact phenomenon. Note that the surrounding languages, Macedonian and Albanian also allow CCV.

Examples:

GT/Mac/Alb ST
[Listen to example] Stambol [Listen to example] Istanbul
[Listen to example] Struga Ustruga/[Listen to example] Sutruga
sport [Listen to example] sipor