Comparison between Uzbek and Qaraqalpaq

Phonological correspondences

Where most suffixes in literary Uzbek don't change at all, suffixes in Qaraqalpaq change based on phonological factors—i.e., depending on nearby sounds.

The place where this might be most evident is Qaraqalpaq vowel harmony.

Compare the following suffix:

meaning	Uzbek form	Qaraqalpaq form
Plural	-lar	-lAr

The Uzbek form is always -lar, but in Qaraqalpaq the A character is used to represent the fact that the sound in this position can be realised in more than one way. Compare:

meaning	Uzbek form	Qaraqalpaq form
‘apple-pl’	olma-lar	alma-lar
‘camel-pl’	tuya-lar	túye-ler

Note that the A is sometimes ‘a’ and sometimes ‘e’, based on the last vowel of the preceding word. This isn't simply because the last vowel of the preceding word is an ‘a’ and ‘e’, respectively, but because they are back and front vowels, respectively. And it also mostly doesn't matter what intervening consonants there are. Here's the full list of Qaraqalpaq vowels and how they behave with respect to this "vowel harmony":

vowel	front or back	example
i	front	tiller ‘language-pl’
e	front
ú	front	kúnler ‘day-pl’
ó	front	kóller ‘lake-pl’
á	usually front	tánlár ‘body-pl’
a	back
ı	back
o	back
u	back

The main exception to á being front is nouns that end in á, where it acts back: gúnálar ‘sin-pl’.

[discussion of I]

[consonants: D]

[combination: G]

Differences in vocabulary

Helpful sound correspondences

Uzbek sound	Qaraqalpaq sound	example
i	i
	ı
u	u	qul ≈ qul
	ú	kul ≈ kúl
oʼ	o
	ó	oʼmir ≈ ómir
o	a
	á
a
	a
	e
e