Telafer Ağzı
The Talafar Dialect

Summary/Abstract: The Telafar Turkmen dialect, upon which no known research exists beyond one fifty-year old paper by Sadettin Buluç, is unique among other Iraqi Turkmen dialects. It has preserved features both from Old Turkic and from Southeastern Turkic languages (e.g. ağrığverduğuy, “what you gave”, köŋül>göyül “heart, soul”, soŋra>soyra “later, after”). This paper will examine haplology, vowel mutation, consonant change(s), germination, consonant assimilation, the use of the word “bile” as a personal and reflexive pronoun, and different morphological varients within noun and verb inflection. This paper will also take a look at how Anatolian Turkish is re-shaping the Telafar Turkmen dialect because of reasons such as in-creased contact between the two languages and migration. Interviews conducted with Iraqi Turkmens living in Ankara comprise of the primary linguistic resource for this study. Two additional resources, including Rıza Çolakoğlu’s Telafer Folkloru (Talafar Folklore) (İstanbul 2017), as well as Ahmet T. Tiryaki and Füsun Menşure’s Muhaceretteki Telaferli Türkmen Şairler Antolojisi (The Anthology of Displaced Talafar Turkmen Poets) (Istanbul 2018) have also been drawn from.

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