Abkhaz language


Abkhaz, also known as Abkhazian, is a Northwest Caucasian language most closely related to Abaza. It is spoken mostly by the Abkhaz people. It is one of the official languages of Abkhazia, where around 190,000 people speak it. Furthermore, it is spoken by thousands of members of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara, Syria, Jordan, and several Western countries. 27 October is the day of the Abkhazian language in Georgia.

Classification

Abkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language and is thus related to Adyghe. The language of Abkhaz is especially close to Abaza, and they are sometimes considered dialects of the same language, Abazgi, of which the literary dialects of Abkhaz and Abaza are simply two ends of a dialect continuum. Grammatically, the two are very similar; however, the differences in phonology are substantial, it also contains elements characteristic of Kabardian; these are the main reasons for many others to prefer keeping the two separate, while others still refer to it as the Tapanta dialect of Abkhaz. Chirikba mentions that there are possible indications that proto-Northwest Caucasian, could have divided firstly into proto-Circassian and to proto-Ubykh-Abkhaz; Ubykh then being the closest relative to Abkhaz, with it only later on being influenced by Circassian.

Geographical distribution

There is not an agreed number of speakers of Abkhaz, and there are widely different numbers. It is agreed that today most of the Abkhaz people do not live in Abkhazia. In the census conducted by the Republic of Abkhazia in 2011, Abkhazians comprised 50.8% of the population, around 122,175 people; of these 92,838 spoke it natively. Only two of the original dialects are still spoken in Abkhazia. The Bzyp dialect is still spoken in its homeland northwest of Sukhumi, stretching from the Bzyp River to the western environs of Sukhumi and the Psyrtskha valley, whereas the Abzhywa dialect is spoken south-east of Sukhumi. The rest of the Abkhaz speaking population inhabits other neighbouring areas.
The exact number of Abkhazians and Abkhaz speakers in Turkey is not clear. The Turkish census denotes 13,951, but the figures are dubious, since the numbers of Abkhazians that came from the beginning of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th have been documented at around 30 thousand. Ethnologue gives 150,000 Abkhazians living in Turkey, of these 50,000 still speak the language. The head of the Abkhaz federation says there are in between 500 and 700 thousand Abkhazians in Turkey. In general, Abkhaz seems to have been lost by most of the descendants, and bilingualism being low except in some specific areas, although there seems to be an effort for the new generation to learn the language with public schools being able to teach Abkhaz and together with 7,836 second language speakers. Abkhazian villages are concentrated around the cities of Adapazarı, Düzce, Sinop, Hendek and Samsun in the northern part, and in the west around cities such as Bilecik, Inegöl and Eskişehir; they are mainly found in the provinces of Sakarya and Bolu in the western part, and near the Çoruh river in the north-east.
Historically the dialects of Sadz, Ahchypsy and Tsabal were located in Abkhazia; Sadz being spoken from the Bzyp river to the Matsesta River, and further to the north-west bordering the Sochypsta River. Today they are exclusively spoken in the northwestern part of Turkey, specially in the Sakarya province, it being spoken in 14 villages.
The other major place where Abkhaz is spoken is in Karachay-Cherkessia, where the Northern dialects are spoken, although there they are considered as a separate language and form the literary Abaza language. They are spoken by 37,831 people in Russia, mostly in the south of Stavropol Krai in the area around Kislovodsk, and in the upper Kuma river area.
Abkhaz is also spoken as a minority language around the world. There is a considerable number of Abkhaz speakers in Adjara in southern Georgia, with the diaspora concentrating itself around the capital Batumi, with about 982 people considering Abkhaz their first language. In the Russian census of 2010, 6,786 speakers of Abkhaz were reported in Russia. In Ukraine there are around 1,458 according to the 2001 census, but of these only 317 speak Abkhazian. There were also communities in Syria, Jordan and Iraq with around 5,000 Abkhazians, although this number could reach 10,000 according to the Abkhazia's Foreign Ministry. The biggest western diaspora is in Germany, with around 5,000 speakers, but other communities are found in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Austria, France, Belgium and so on.

History

The earliest indisputable extant written records of the Abkhaz language are in the Arabic script, recorded by the Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi in the 17th century. Abkhaz has been used as a literary language for only about 100 years.
It was suggested that certain inscriptions on Ancient Greek pottery which had been considered nonsense are in fact written in Abkhaz-Adydge languages. The methodology of the research was criticised and the results called improbable.
In 1918, Tbilisi State University became the first institution of higher education to teach Abkhazian language. The founders of the university began to take care of the development and scientific study of the Abkhazian language. At the meeting of the Council of Professors held at Tbilisi State University in 1918, Ivane Javakhishvili noted the scientific importance of studying Caucasian languages. In 1918, by the decision of the Council of Professors, Petre Charaia was invited to teach the Abkhazian language, and from 1925, this mission was continued by Dimitri Gulia and Simon Janashia.

Status

Both Georgian and Abkhaz law enshrines an official status of the Abkhaz language in Abkhazia.
The 1992 law of Georgia, reiterated in the 1995 constitution, grants Abkhaz the status of second official language in the territory of Abkhazia — along with Georgian.
In November 2007, the de facto authorities of Abkhazia adopted a new law "on the state language of the Republic of Abkhazia" that mandates Abkhaz as the language of official communication. According to the law, all meetings held by the president, parliament, and government must be conducted in Abkhaz from 2010, and all state officials will be obliged to use Abkhaz as their language of everyday business from 2015. Some, however, have considered the implementation of this law unrealistic and concerns have been made that it will drive people away from Abkhazia and hurt the independent press due to a significant share of non-Abkhaz speakers among ethnic minorities as well as Abkhaz themselves, and a shortage of teachers of Abkhaz. The law is an attempt to amend a situation where up to a third of the ethnic Abkhaz population are no longer capable of speaking their ethnic language, and even more are unable to read or write it; instead, Russian is the language most commonly used in public life at present.

Dialects

Classification

Abkhaz is generally viewed as having three major dialects:
  • Abzhywa, spoken in the Caucasus, and named after the historical area of Abzhywa, sometimes referred to as Abzhui, the Russified form of the name.
  • Bzyb or Bzyp, spoken in the Caucasus and in Turkey, and named after the Bzyb area.
  • Sadz, nowadays spoken only in Turkey, formerly also spoken between the rivers Bzyp and Khosta.
The literary language is based on the Abzhywa dialect.
Below is a classification of Abkhaz dialects according to Chirikba :
  • Common Abkhaz
  • *North Abkhaz
  • **Tapanta
  • *Ashkharywa
  • *South Abkhaz
  • **Southwestern
  • ***Sadz
  • **Southeastern
  • ***Ahchypsy, Bzyp
  • ***Tsabal, ''Abzhywa''

    General characteristics

In some form or the other, all dialects are richer in phonemes than the standard Abzhywa dialect. The only dialects spoken in Abkhazia are Abzhywa and Bzyp. Northern dialects which are the basis for literary Abaza are spoken in Karachay-Cherkessia, while the other dialects such as Sadz are spoken in Turkey due to Russian invasions in the 19th century. While most differences are phonetic, differences in the lexicon are present, although mostly due to exterior contact. Bzyp contains the most preserved lexicon, with few borrowings. Abzhywa has adopted many loans from Kartvelian, specially Mingrelian; Sadz on the other hand has more words from Circassian. Northern dialects in general have more loanwords from Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Circassian.

Phonology

Consonants

Abkhaz has a very large number of consonants, with three-way voiced/voiceless/ejective and palatalized/labialized/plain distinctions. By contrast, the language has only two phonemically distinct vowels, which have several allophones depending on the palatal and/or labial quality of adjacent consonants.
Labialised alveolo-palatal fricatives are found in the Bzyp and Sadz dialects of Abkhaz, but not in Abzhywa. Plain alveolo-palatal consonants and the pharyngealised and labialised-pharyngealised uvular fricatives are unique to the Bzyp dialect.
The consonants highlighted in red and in brackets are the 4 kinds of labialisation described by Chirikba.

Vowels

The nature of the vowels of Abkhaz is not clear. Some linguists, characterise the vowel system as a 2 degree vertical vowel system; with the two vowels being distinguished by height, 'ә' being the high/close vowel, and 'а' being the low/open. This system would very closely resemble the one found in Adyghe. The quality of 'ә' in this case, is usually represented as if the vowel is in a stressed position, and being unaffected by its neighbouring consonants.
Vowel
Close
Open

Other linguists however, mainly Russian ones, describe the vowels differently. They describe the sound of 'ә' being completely different from , and by their descriptions being closer to . The 'а' is described as being particularly back, likely .
CentralBack
Mid
Open