Khanty
Spoken in Western Siberia, Khanty forms the eastern half of the Ob-Ugric languages. It has usually been treated as a single language divided in many dialects, tho a division into a small family of 3-4 languages may be more appropriate. The historical phonology of Khanty has been problematic in Uralistics.
Vowels
Khanty dialects generally have a distinction between full and overshort vowels. This correlates with the long-short distinction of Mansi, and is transcribed here as geminate vs. single.
Many vowels develop different near to velar consonant, which is mark'd by <Vˠ>. Some dialects trigger labialization in following velars, markd by <Vʷ>.
Several paradigmatic vowel alternations (generally in height or length, such as *ɑɑ ~ *uu, or *e ~ *ee) occur in some varieties, that are generally thought to result from umlaut at a stage when there was a richer system of non-initial syllable vowels.
| Vax-Vasjugan | Tremjugan-Jugan | Demj-Konda | Nizjam | Kazym | Obdorsk | vs. Mansi | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *uu | uu | uu | yy, uuˠ | u | u | uu | *uu ([oo]?) | |
| *ɯɯ | ɯɯ | ɯɯ | ii, eeˠ | i | i | ii | *ɯɯ ([ɤɤ]?), *a | |
| *ii | ii | ii | ii | *ii ([ee]?) | ||||
| *yy | yy | iiʷ | ||||||
| *oo₁ | oo | o, a | uu, ooˠ | uu | (w)oo | oo | *aa, *a, *å | Živlov: *a |
| *oo₂ | uu | uu | Živlov: *oo | |||||
| *ɔɔ | ɔɔ | oo | ||||||
| *ɑɑ | ɑɑ | ɒɒ | oo, ɑɑˠ | ɔɔ | ɔɔ | ɑɑ | *ɯɯ, *ɑɑ | |
| *ee₁ | ee, øøˠ | aa | ee | ee | ee | ee | *ää, *ä | Živlov: *ä |
| *ee₂ | ii | ii | Živlov: *ii; N&K (j)ee | |||||
| *øø | øø | aa, ø | Živlov: Split from *ee₁ | |||||
| *ææ | ææ | aa | aa | ɑɑ | ɑɑ | aa | *ii | Sammallahti: TJ /ɒɒ/ ? (typo å for ȧ?) |
| *ɶɶ | œœ | eeʷ | Živlov: Konda & O. /oo/ / _k | |||||
| *o | o | o | ɑ | o | o | ɑ | *a, *å | |
| *ɑ | ɑ | ɑ | Živlov: *ɯ (?!) | |||||
| *e | e | e | e | ɑ | ɑ | a | *i | |
| *ɵ | ø | ɵ, eʷ | ɵ | u | u | uu | *ü |
There is an interesting anomaly in the treatment of the Proto-Uralic close vowels:
- *i → *ee₁; *e before a cluster
- *u → *oo₁; *o before a cluster
- but: *ü → *ɵ uniformly (never **øø)
What seems to be going here starts unraveling once we compare the Mansi reflexes:
- *i → *ä
- *u → *å
- *ü → *ä, but Northern Mansi ü
In common Ob-Ugric these were apparently lower'd to *e *o *ö. In NMs it seems *ö then re-raised to ü (elsewhere merging to *e and continuing to *ä). (This could be motivated by the typological rarity of having /ø/ but no /y/. New *i and *u did exist, but there was no new *ü.) NMs shares several innovations with the Khanty dialects; so, here it would seem that *ö also raised to *ü and was lower'd to *ɵ only later, akin to *e also partly deriving from common Ob-Ugric *i (← PU *ê). This may explain the *uu-like reflexes in Eastern Khanty as well.
(The vowel usually call'd *ï in PU yields mostly *ɯɯ or *ɑɑ and is better understood as a mid vowel, *ë [ɤ ~ ʌ])
