Phonetic Features of the Karachay Idiom of the Karachay-Balkar Language in the Work of Wilhelm Pröhle ”Karatschajische Studien”

The purpose of this article is to consider the phonetic features of the Karachay idiom of the Karachay-Balkar language, recorded by the famous Turkologist Wilhelm Pröhle in the work “Karatschajische Studien” during an expedition to the Caucasus in the summer of 1908. The relevance of the work is due to the fact that until now this problem has not been the object of research, although the studies contain valuable material for describing the history of the Karachay-Balkar language. The article gives a characteristic of the phonemic composition in comparison with the modern state of the sound composition of the modern Karachai-Balkarian literary language, notes some inaccuracies made by W. Pröhle in the analysis of factual material. The work shows that W. Pröhle was able to present phonetic facts and phenomena as a structured system on the basis of the terminology of comparative historical linguistics, thereby creating the basis for the linguistic terminology of the Karachai-Balkarian language. The research results have both theoretical and practical significance: they can be used both in the preparation of the historical phonetics of the Karachai-Balkarian language and in the educational process.