the language of the Bashkir people; related to the Kipchak group of the western branch of the Turkic languages. The principal dialects are the southern (Iurmata) and the eastern (Kuvakan). The language is spoken in the territory of the Bashkir ASSR. Bashkir is spoken by approximately 612,000 people (1959 census). Bashkir is quite similar to Tatar, although they differ in phonetic and certain grammatical features.
Bashkir has the following distinctive phonetic features: (1) the presence of the weak vowels [ï], [ě], [oˇ], and [öˇ] (orthographically “ï,” “e,” “o,” and “ö”; (2) the correspondence of Bashkir [i], [u], and [ü] to Common Turkic [e], [o], and [ö]; (3) the presence of a labialized [å] (the same as in Tatar); (4) the presence of the interdental fricatives [e] and [ǒ], corresponding to the Common Turkic [s] and [z]; (5) the presence of the glottal fricative [h] (at the beginning of a syllable), corresponding to Common Turkic [s]; and (6) the correspondence of Bashkir [s] to Common Turkic [č].
The Bashkir literary language has flourished during the Soviet period. The Bashkir writing system was based on the Arabic script until 1929, on the Latin alphabet from 1929 to 1939, and on the Cyrillic alphabet since 1939.
E. A. POTSELUEVSKII