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Phonetics of the Azerbaijani language

  

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There are 9 vowels and 23 consonants phoneme (26 consonants) in the Azerbaijani language. Vowels are divided into hard and soft, labializing and non- labializing, closed and open, pre-tongue, mid tongue and post tongue groups. But for quantity is divided into three groups simple, long and short:
1. Hard vowels: a, u, o, ı
2. Soft vowels,: ə, e, ö, ü, i
3. Labializing vowels: o, u, ö, ü
4. Non-labializing vowels: a, e, ə, i, ı
5. Pre-tongue vowels: ə, i, e, ü
6. Mid-tongue vowel: e
7. Post-tongue vowels: a, i, o, u
8. Closed vowels: u, ü, ı, i, e
9. Open vowels: o, ö, a, ə
In Azerbaijani language ə vowels is widely used, which is absent in other oghuz Turkic languages like Turkish, Gagauz.   
ı vowel is not being observed in the Azerbaijani at the beginning of the word.
Consonants are also divided into two in the Azerbaijani language: voiceless and voiced consonants. Majority of voiced and voiceless consonants make pairs:
Voiced consonants:     [b] [c] [d] [g] [ğ], [j] [q] [l] [m] [n] [r] [v] [y] [z]
Voiceless consonants: [p] [ç] [t] [k] [x] [h] [s] [k`], - -  - - - [f] [x`] [s] 
There is tight voiceless (k) and voiced (g) consonants in Azerbaijani, which are not in other Turkic language.  Observing of h consonant at the beginning of word, is to be noted as a specific sign, too.
Though Y consonant is spread widely in dialects and accents, it may disappear in the literary language: üzük-yüzük, ürək-yürək, üz-yüz etc.
Ğ consonant is not being used in the Azerbaijani at the word beginning. Moreover doubling of consonants in the mid of Azerbaijani words (geminat) ((saqqal, addım, səkkiz etc) must be noted as specific case.
Vowel harmony being very typical for all Turkic languages is observed in Azerbaijani, too. This law is protected mostly in harmony of palates. In other words, hard and soft vowels follow each other as a rule.
As in other Turkic languages, stress carries dynamic character in the Azerbaijani, too. Nevertheless, this stress in the other Turkic languages and as well as in Azerbaijani, falls on last syllable of the word mostly. Group of affixes in Azerbaijani (affixes of negation, question, condition, verbal adverb etc) does not accept the stress.



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