Abstract
In the present report, major characteristics of Bolu dialect have been mentioned, mainly in comparison with standard forms. Sounds which are not found in Standard Turkish are four central vowels, the velar nasal and the narrow e. In some cases, a high unrounded vowel is replaced by a high rounded one. Voicing of the initial k and the loss of r in syllable final position are observed with high frequency. Some morphological characteristics have been also mentioned. Among them the suffix for the present progressive tense -ye〜-ya〜-ya, and the ending for the first person singular -n may be most conspicuous. This does not mean, however, that the characteristics mentioned above are exclusively found in Bolu dialect. It is a well-known fact that most of these characteristics are also observed in other Turkish dialects (cf. Caferoglu 1959, 1964, 1965). I hope that the present report will supply even a small part of data for the comparative study of Turkish dialects. As is already mentioned, such data as used in the present paper, are not guaranteed to contain sufficient information for linguistic analysis and, therefore, some points have been left unclear. To compensate such shortcomings, an investigation using a questionnaire is necessary. In this sense, research using interview texts and that with questionnaire are not replaceable but are complementary.
