SOUTH WESTERN AND EASTERN TURKIC FEATURES IN THE KARABULAK DIALECT OF UZBEK

Abstract

Some Turkic texts written between the 13th-15th centuries exhibit the linguistic characteristics of both Oghuz and Eastern Turkic (Erdal, 2015, p. 135). This phenomenon is named as ‘olga- ~ bolga- dili’ (mixed language) in Turkic linguistics (Erdal, 2015, p. 135). One of the main characteristics of the ‘olga- ~ bolga-’ language is the use of both South Western Turkic ol- and Eastern Turkic bol- “to become, to be ” forms of the verb (Erdal, 2015, p. 135). So far, linguistic parameters of the ‘olga- ~ bolga-’ language have been identified only in historical Turkic texts. However, analyzing the Karabulak Dialect of Uzbek, I have noticed that the ol- and bol- forms of the verb are used interchangeably in this dialect. This probably means that the Karabulak dialect is an ‘olga- ~ bolga-’ mixed dialect. Nevertheless, other characteristics of the ‘olga- ~ bolga-’ language, such as the presence of both +GA and -(y)A forms of the dative in a language, should be verified. Consequently, this paper aims to analyze Karabulak Dialect in a framework of the ‘olga- ~ bolga-’ language to see if it also shows other features of mixed language listed by Erdal (2015, p. 137). Moreover, the issue of ‘olga- ~ bolga-’ features in the Karabulak dialect is worth researching due to the absence of prior research on the topic and its potential to provide a new perspective to look at Turkic Dialects.