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What is the difference between Northern Uzbek and Southern Uzbek?


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KBar profile picture KBarMay 2022

There’s not really a north vs south distinction of Uzbek dialects. I don’t know why Ethnologue decided to classify the language as that. I'd imagine that by north they mean the languages/dialects spoken in Uzbekistan and by south they mean the dialects spoken by Uzbeks in Afghanistan.

 

In short, there are many regional dialects that are pretty much mutually intelligible except in some edge cases. Though one might argue that some of the dialects are actually distinct languages (Xorazm shevasi being the closest to this distinction), I don’t have a degree in linguistics so I can’t really say anything definitive here.

 

If there are differences, they’re mostly in vowel phonetics (especially the sound of oʻ), temporal morphemes (votti vs yapti vs opti), and of course local slang and vocab.

  • KBar profile picture KBarMay 2022
    So, after watching BBC News in Uzbek for Afghanistan, I can definitely say that the language that Uzbeks in Afghanistan use in their everyday lives (which could be called Southern Uzbek, I suppose) is definitely different to what we use in Uzbekistan. More Arabic words, differences in pronunciation (especially the sound of ”v”, which almost becomes a velar approximant). Verb conjugation and deletion of syllable-final ”r”s are very similar to that of Tashkent dialect. Like Northern Uzbek, it also seems to be lacking vowel harmony, which is actually very prominent in other Turkic languages.

    For anyone curious, you can listen to it here: https://www.bbc.com/uzbek/bbc_uzbek_tv/tv/w172yjzpk16bzj4