ABSTRACT
Introduction The modern West Kipchak languages are Kumyk, Karachay-Balkar, Crimean Tatar, and Karaim in its Trakai and Halie varieties.
Phonetics and Phonology The vowel systems generally distinguish the eight phonemes Ia!, lei, ri!, Ii/, lö/, 101, 10/, lüI. Halie Karaim lacks the rounded front löl and lüI. Kumyk has a fronted variant of Ia!, ä, before syllables containing i or i~ and in the environment of h and k in words of foreign origin. The occurrence of e and e as variants of lei is determined by position. Kumyk e occurs in non-fIrst syllabies, whereas e occurs in primary sterns and suffIxes containing y, e.g. Beremen 'I give', Gieteler 'They leave'. Crimean Tatar Ii/ has two variants, i and a reduced 1. This difference is phonernic in the northern dialect, e.g. kir 'mud' vs. klr 'come in'. Rounded low 101 and löl are mostly restricted to fIrst syllabies. Kumyk initial 101 is pronounced UD, e.g. uOnda 'there', uOt 'fIre'. In allianguages, löl and lüI are somewhat backed to 0 and ü.
