Abstract While the v sound is not encountered in the Köktürk written texts, the transformation from b to v begins in medial and final positions starting from Old Uyghur Turkic. The front b- sound in the words bar, bar-, and bir- was preserved in Köktürk, Uyghur, Karakhanid, Khwarezm-Kipchak, Chagatai Turkic, and in the contemporary Turkic dialects that are the continuations of this linguistic line. In Old Oghuz Turkic, however, the front b- sound in these words began to change to the v- sound from the 13th century onward, and this shift continued into modern Oghuz dialects, including Turkish, Azerbaijani Turkic, and Gagauz Turkic, which now use the forms var, var-, and ver-. In contrast, Turkmen Turkic, a member of the Oghuz group, retains the forms bār, bar-, and ber- with the b- sound. In the dialects of Gaziantep and its surrounding areas, which belong to the Western group of Turkish dialects in Turkey, there are numerous instances where the words var, var- retain the front b- sound, i.e., the archaic forms bar, bar-. In this paper, this topic, which has a different and archaic feature than the Turkic dialects in the Oghuz group, was discussed. Examples of this usage in the central districts of Gaziantep and its surrounding areas were given, and an evaluation was made by examining the reason for this use.
Oghuz group Turkic dialects, Old Oghuz Turkic, Gaziantep dialects, front sound b-