WILHELM PRÖHLE UND DIE ANFÄNGE DER WISSENSCHAFTLICHEN LAUTLEHRE DES BALKARISCHEN

The article deals with the establishment of the fundamentals of Balkarian scientific phonetics in the works of Austro-Hungarian turcologist and orientalist Wilhelm Pröhle. It gives analysis and describes the study on the Balkarian Language sounds in Pröhle's research «Balkarian Studies», published in the Hungarian scientific journal KeletiSzemle, 15-th issue, 1914–1915 y. The Balkarian Phonetics presents rather brief but informative outline of the Balkarian sound system based on the material of the Malkarian dialect, which was the spoken form of that period of time. Pröhle uses 36 transcription symbols and the apostrophe for the the adequate description of the Balkarian sound system and its its functional peculiarities. The research gives general information on the Balkarian Language, its sound system and major differences between consonant systems of the two closely related languages – Balkarian and Karachay. It also describes specific nature of the vowel harmony, and gives analysis of positionally conditioned transformations in the Balkarian vowel and consonant systems and quantitative peculiarities of the vowels. A brief outline of the stress system in Balkarian is given in the article. In his research Pröhle widely uses both - background material of the Turcic languages and historic- etymological data to show transparently typological features of the Balkarian phonetic system and specific ways of development of its particular sounds. Wilhelm Pröhle was the first to introduce the Balkarian Language material into scientific circulation, he laid the basis for the scientific description of ist phonetic system, thus contriburing to the development of the scientific language study of Balkarian