Dialects on the Eastern Turkish Coast of the Black Sea: a Preliminary Report*

言語研究(Gengo Kenkyu)85,91～107

Dialects on the Eastern Turkish Coast of the Black Sea: A Preliminary Report*

Tooru HAYASHI

1. Introduction

The present paper is on the geographical variation of dialects on the eastern Turkish coast of the Black Sea. However, I should like to start with a rough introduction to Turkish dialects in Turkey and dialect studies on them.

Turkic languages such as Turkish, Kazakh, Tatar and Uzbek are sometimes referred to as dialects. This usage of the term 'dialect' makes it appear that each dialect is homogeneous . How- ever, even within such so-called dialects there still exist consider- able linguistic varieties. In this paper, the term' dialect ' will be used for linguistic varieties within Turkish, which in turn will be referred to as a'language'.

*An earlier version of this paper was read at the 31st International Congress of Human Sciences in Asia and North Africa, August-Sep- tember, 1983. I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Denis Sinor and Prof. Gyorgy Hazai for discussion and suggestions at the congress. I am also grateful to Prof. Muharrem Ergin and Prof. Saadettin Buluc, who accepted me in Istanbul University and persuaded me to study dialects in Turkey. During my preparation for the present paper, I benefited considerably from the advice and criticism of Masao Aizawa, Prof. Roger Finch, Prof. Kiyozo Kazama, Hitoshi Kuribayashi, Kazuto Matsumura, Clay Ramsay, Haruyuki Saito, Prof. Takesi Sibata, Prof. Shigeru Tsuchida, and Prof. Zendo Uwano.

91 92 Tooru HAYASHI

In Turkey, because of the lack of dialectological investigation on a nationwide scale, dialect distribution has not been clearly mapped out yet." However, Ahmet Caferoglu, who carried out much fieldwork and gathered a large amount of data on various dialects, attempted a rough classification of the dialects of Turkey as follows: (1) the south-western dialects (2) the central Anatolian dialects (3) the eastern dialects (4) the north-eastern Black Sea dialects (5) the Rumelian dialects (6) the south-eastern dialects (7) the Kastamonu dialects (Caferoglu 1959: 239)

Map 1. Classification of the dialects in Turkey

1) Tiirk Dil Kurumu (The Linguistic Society of Turkey) published Turkiyede Halk Agzindan Soz Derleme Dergisi I-VI (1939-1952) and Derleme Sozlugu I-XI (1963-1978), which are vocabularies of dialect forms collected by mail from almost all over Turkey. However, they register only the forms which are lexically different from those of the Istanbul dialect and neglect phonetic variation. Moreover, the dialect forms are ordered alphabetically regardless of the region in which they are spoken. Therefore, these two dialect vocabularies do not seem so helpful to the study of dialect distribution. Dialects on the Eastern Turkish Coast of the Black Sea 93

The lines on Map 1 dividing the dialects are my own and are more or less arbitrary, because the information on the geographical extent of each dialect group given by Caferoglu is sparse. Further- more, the criteria used in the classification are not made explicit.

It is, therefore, conceivable that this classification may be based primarily on intuition, drawn from his rich experience in dialectological investigation. Nevertheless, Map 1 shows the approximate geographical distribution of dialects in Turkey. The dialects classified as the north-eastern Black Sea dialects are those that we will later discuss in this paper.

1. 2. Dialect studies in Turkey Now I should like to move on to dialectological studies in Turkey. I must again refer to Ahmet Caferoglu. Inspired by the pioneer works of M. Rasanen, T. Kowalski and others, he began fieldwork in the early 1940's. He visited many towns and villages of Turkey and gathered a large amount of data from interviews with native inhabitants of each region. As far as we can gather from his works, his method of investigation was roughly as follows: 1) he asked the informant whether the informant knew any tale (hikaye), joke (fikra), folksong (turku) or other material that could be repeated substantially from memory; 2) what the informant said he transcribed in a phonetic alphabet; 3) after sufficient transcribed texts were collected, he made the vocabulary of them.

His investigation covered 40 provinces of Turkey (Caferoglu 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1948, 1951). He is the first 94 Tooru HAYASHI and only scholar who collected data from such a vast area.2) After Caferoglu the number of scholars in this field increased and the geographical extent was expanded." Aside from the fact that the area of investigation was extended, it seems that the method of Caferoglu remained standard and has been followed by almost all scholars, though several minor improvements have been made.

1. 3. Characteristics of dialect studies in Turkey One of the reasons why the method mentioned above has been followed by most of scholars is that dialect study has been under the influence of the study of folklore in Turkey. Many dialec- tologists are at the same time folklorists. Because of this fact data to be collected are also required to be relevant to the study of folklore (cf. Kowalski 1934). This causes two problems. One is that the linguistic features of folkloric texts may be different from those of ordinary speech. It is likely that language of folklore is more conservative in terms of linguistic feature. The other problem, which is practical but more serious, is that it is not always possible to compare semantically equivalent forms of different dialects because one cannot always find the counterpart of a form of one dialect in the texts of the other dialect. (It becomes more and more difficult if the number of dialects

2) In almost the same period, Omer Asim Aksoy investigated the Gazian- tep dialect, which was actually his own dialect (Aksoy 1945, 1946). The grammatical description and the vocabulary are, therefore, precise and exhaustive, though later he devoted himself more to philology, study of folklore and compilation of dictionaries. 3) Some of them are Saadettin Buluc, Janos Eckmann, Zeynep Korkmaz and Selahattin Olcay. Recently Efrasyab Gemalmaz, Turgut Gunay, and Tuncer Gulensoy published their studies on the dialects of Erzurum, Rize and-Kutahya, respectively. Dialects on the Eastern Turkish Coast of the Black Sea 95 to be compared increases.) In most literature, therefore, comparison is made only with the standard variety, i. e. with the Istanbul dialect. The only comparison possible between dialects is an indi- rect one, by comparing them with the Istanbul dialect. For this reason the study of dialect distribution has been one of the un- developed fields in Turkish dialectology.

2. Investigation

2.1. Aim of the investigation It has been recognized that the dialects on the eastern Black Sea coast (especially the dialects of Trabzon and Rize) are quite different from other dialects. These dialects have such conspicuous characteristics that they are often wrongly identified with Lazca (the language of Laz), which is actually a non-Turkic language. Therefore I decided to study these dialects. However, for the reason mentioned in 1. 3, no information was available on the dialect distribution of this region and cosequently on where descriptive studies should be carried out. Thus a preliminary survey was necessary the aim of which was to arrive at a rough dialect distribution for this region and hence to establish where descriptive studies should be made in the future. Furthermore, distributional information would be also helpful if one wants to know the geographic extent of the validity of a description, which is usually made with several informants at most.

2.2. Geographic field

The area of eastern coast of the Black Sea has no plain except for the western region of Samsun (the plain of Carsamba). The mountains almost meet the coast. In the southern part of this area there are several peaks which are 2000-3000m above sea level. In general the lay of the land is very complex. Many swift currents flow from the south to the Black Sea. The area is abundant in 96 Tooru HAYASHI forests because of the high degree of precipitation. At present the main roads are the national road 20, which runs from Samsun to Hopa along the coast, and the national road E 390, which runs from Trabzon to Erzurum through Gumushane . Before the national road 20 was built several roads running from the south to the coast connected the coastal region with central Anatolia (Turk Nesriyat Yurdu 1927). Travel through the villages in the mountainous region is generally quite arduous. Travel by boat on the Black Sea is important but not quite as important as before the coastal highway was built. The main ports are Samsun, Fatsa, Giresun, Gorele, Trabzon, Rize and Hopa (Rize 1967 I1

Map 2. Provinces in the eastern coast of the Black Sea

2.3. Method of the investigation During trips to the provinces of Samsun, Ordu, Giresun, Trabzon and Rize, 28 informants were interviewed. Each informant was asked the names of the same 69 items, by using pictures and by pointing various parts of my body. Before the interview I tried to chat with the informant for a while. Nevertheless the interviews were still apt to be somewhat unnatural because for most of the informants I was not only the first Japanese but also the Dialects on the Eastern Turkish Coast of the Black Sea 97

Table1. List of informants 98 Tooru HAYASHI first foreigner they had ever seen. Table 1 is the list of informants.4) Interviews except no. 3 were made in 1981. In the case of no. 13 I had two informants at one time. Informant no. 2 told me that his native place was Samsun, but after the replies were ex- amined, this information seemed suspect. Thus no. 2 is excluded from the study. The ages in parentheses are approximate. For reference, variants of Erzurum dialect are shown as no. 28 on Map 2 in case I can find counterparts in the vocabulary of Gemalmaz (1978).

3. Distribution Among the linguistic maps obtained through the investigation, in the sections which follow some typical examples are shown.

3.1. Lexical variation Map 3 shows the lexical variation for the meaning of 'potato'. There are mainly four forms together with the variants: [patates], [kartof/kartol/kartopu], [gostil] and [jerelmasi].5) The word [patates] is also the modern standard form, i. e. in the Istanbul dialect. Although [kartof/kartol/kartopu] are not standard forms, it is likely to be the case that they are distributed over a vast area because we find, for instance, [kortol] in Antalya, which is a province on the Mediterranean coast. According to these facts, it would be reasonable to think that [patates] and [kartof/kartol/ kartopu] play a role of the standard forms also in this region.

4) A uniformity in the ages of the informants is quite desirable in such an investigation as this. However, I could not attain this condition because I had to find a speaker who would agree to an interview with me on each site within a limited time. 5) It is clear that potatoes were brought to Turkey not before the 16th century. Therefore, the distribution of 'potato' would be rather new. [patates] and [kartof/kartol] seem to be borrowed from Greek and Russian, respectively. Dialects on the Eastern Turkish Coast of the Black Sea 99

Map3. 'potato'6

Once [patates] and [kartof/kartol/kartopu] are removed from the map, a clear distribution appears; [gostil] is scattered on the central part of this area (actually a part of the provinces of Ordu and Giresun), while [jerelmasi] is found in the eastern part (the province of Trabzon and the western part of the province of Rize). On Map 4 'crab ' the same kind of distribution can be seen when the variants of [jenget•ç], which is a standard form, are removed from the map.

Map 4. 'crab'

6) Slurred symbols represent synomymous forms reported by one informant for the same item. 100 Tooru HAYASHI The form [tsaxana] is found in the same region as [jerelmasi] on Map 3, though here two different forms are found in the central area ([kirkajak]7) and [bavra]). Distributional patterns like those on Map 3 and 4 provide no clue to the chronology of the forms, but it is clear that there are two distinct areas which are characterized by the forms [gostil], [kirkajak] and [bavra], and by the forms [jerelmasi] and [tsaxana], respectively.

3.2. Variation of pronunciation

3.2.1. Examples of distribution of a form over the central area

Map 5 shows the distribution of the variants for the meaning of 'tray'.

Map5. 'tray'

The distributional pattern is conducive to the speculation claim- ing that [tespi] is an innovative form derived from [tepsi] by means of metathesis. This is also reinforced with the fact that [tepsi] is a very common form in the entire Anatolia, whereas [tespi] is rare.

7) The form [kirkajak], which is a compound of [kirk] 'forty' and [ajak] 'foot' , means 'centipede' in the Istanbul dialect. Dialects on the Eastern Turkish Coast on the Black Sea 101

Another example of distribution convenient to the same speculation as above is found also on Map 6 'peach'.

Map6. 'peach'

We have three phonetically different variants for 'peach'. It is quite evident that the Persian form [•çafta: lu:] is the original form of them. Then the most natural process of pronunciation change may be as follows:

•ç afta: lu: •¨ •çefta: li •¨ •çeftali •¨ •çefteli 8)

The variant [•çefta: li] is at the same time a standard form and is consequently scattered here and there over the whole area. In contrast, the distribution of [•çeftali] and [•çefteli] is conspicuous; the former occupies the eastern area and the latter, the central area. Again the distributional pattern itself tells very little about relative chronology, but according to the most possible schema of pronunciation change, it is possible that the variants of the central area are innovative. The items which show the initial k-g variation before a back vowel are also of this distributional pattern. Voiced forms spread over the central area, though the geographic extent

8) Original Turkish words have no long vowel and obey the vowel harmony rule. So [•çefteli] can be regarded as the most Turkicized form. 102 Tooru HAYASHI differs a little from item to item.

3. 2. 2. Examples of distribution of a form over the eastern area

Contrary to the case of the maps pertinent to the speculation mentioned in 3. 2. 1 we find few maps with the distributional pattern suitable for the speculation such that variants of the eastern area are innovative. One of the few examples is Map 7 'bridge'.

Map 7. 'bridge'

Here it is reasonable to regard [t•çƒÆpri/t•çƒÆpru] as innovative in that the process of pronunciation change from [k] to [t•ç] before a central vowel is more natural than the opposite one and that the occurrences of [t•çƒÆpri/t•çƒÆpru] are clumped together except for no.

26 and none of them were reported with [kƒÆpru]9).

Apart from the maps such as Map 7 most of the other examples of this distributional pattern are like Map 8 'eye' below. The predominance of the voiced variants is quite evident. Five voiceless variants, four of which are reported together with the voiced variants, have been split into two groups by the voiced variants.

Moreover, one informant who responded with both voiceless

9) No. 26 might have been transmitted by a sea route but I have now no definite idea about this. Dialects on the Eastern Turkish Coast on the Black Sea 103

Map 8. 'eye'

and voiced variants reported that the voiceless form sounds somewhat archaic. Thus the voiceless variants are likely to be prior to the voiced ones on this map. In most cases the eastern area seems to preserve relic forms and innovations there are relatively rare.

3.2.3. Examples of distribution of a form over the western area Map 9 deals with the variation in terms of the palatalization of final [k]. The distribution of this map is different from others in that the isogloss runs through the middle of the central area. In the modern standard dialect there is a general phonetic tenden-

Map 9. 'donkey' 104 Tooru HAYASHI cy toward the palatalization of [k] in syllable final position after a front vowel. On Map 9 it can be seen that the influence of the standard dialect is spreading eastward probably from Samsun, which is the biggest city of this region. The same distribution is found in the phonetic variation of the item 'cradle'.

3.3. Classification and characteristics of the dialects According to the distributional patterns shown above, it would be reasonable to presume three distinct dialect areas as follows:

Map 10. Distinct dialect areas

In Area A on Map 10, we find variants which have developed in a relatively recent period probably from the standard form. On the maps indicative of lexical variation this pattern is relatively rare. It may be the case that the variants resembling standard lexical forms have scattered quickly over the whole area probably because lexical variation is transmitted more easily than phonetic variation (Chambers&Trudgill 1980: 113). On the other hand, Area B is significant for the items indicative of both lexical and phonetic variation. The variants scattered over this area are likely to be innovative. It is worth noting that on some maps the variants in Area B coincide with those of Erzurum (see Maps 5, 6 and 8). Then it is presumable that the Dialects on the Eastern Turkish Coast on the Black Sea 105 variants of this area spread over the wider area that may include even a part of central Anatolia. In connection with this it is quite necessary to investigate the southern area of this region, especially the province of Gumushane. Area C is likely to have preserved relic forms. In most cases new variants spreading from Area B seem to skip over Area C. However, it would be dangerous to apply such interpretation to all of the items because there are also some items which show the existence of innovative forms in Area C.

4. Conclusion

In this paper a tentative classification of distributional patterns has been made and it is conceivable that there are three dialect areas (A, B and C) in this region. If this is the case it is reasonable that comparison can be most efficiently made when features of Area A, Area B and Area C are chosen. Thus descriptive studies should be carried out at least at one spot in each area. As mentioned before, this study was planned to give preliminary information for future descriptive studies. So the spots of which the native speakers were interviewed are rather sparse compared with the geographical extent of the object area. Consequently the distributional patterns on the maps shown should be regarded as not so decisive as on the maps obtained through better planned surveys. To compensate for the deficiency of the distributional information other information such as formal characteristics of variants have been utilized. I admit that this study is open to various criticisms. For example, specialists in dialectology, and paticularly in dialect geogra-

phy, would point out that more detailed investigation should be carried out or that the speculation about the information revealed by the maps should be less arbitrary. Turcologists would claim that no comparison is made here with other Turkic languages and 106 Tooru HAYASHI reference is not made to any historical literature. However, there has been no equivalent study available up until now. My hope is that a much better prepared investigation based on more extensive data will be carried out in the same region to broaden the scope of the present study.

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(原稿受理日昭和58年9月30日)