Adyghe language
Adyghe, also known as West Circassian, is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken by the western subgroups of Circassians. Native to Circassia in the Caucasus, it is one of the two official languages of Adygea, the other being Russian. It is spoken mainly in Turkey and Russia, as well as in Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Israel, where Circassians settled after the Circassian genocide by the Russian Empire. Adyghe literary language is largely based on the Temirgoy dialect, which was chosen for its simplicity, although there was significant input from Shapsug and Bzhedug dialects.
Adyghe is closely related to the Kabardian or East Circassian language; some reject the distinction between the two languages in favour of both being dialects of a unitary Circassian language. Despite phonological differences, Circassian languages are reciprocally intelligible, with speakers being able to communicate. While the self-designation for both Adyghe and Kabardian language is Adyghe, in linguistic and administrative terms, "Adyghe" refers specifically to the language of the western tribes of Circassians, while "Kabardian" refers to the language of the two eastern tribes. Ubykh, Abkhaz and Abaza are more distantly related to Adyghe.
Classification and History
Adyghe belongs to the Northwest Caucasian language family. Glottochronological studies suggest that the common Proto-Northwest Caucasian language split into the Circassian, Abkhaz, and Ubykh branches roughly 5,000 years ago. For most of its history, Adyghe was an oral language. The folklore, particularly the Nart sagas, served as a repository for the language.Besides native vocabulary, the Adyghe language has accepted loanwords from Turkic, Arabic, Persian, and Russian languages. The appearance of Turkic loanwords in the Adyghe language can be dated to the 14th century due to interactions with the Golden Horde and Crimean Khanate. Words such as chapych are pre-revolutionary loans from Russian, while internationalisms like revolutsiye entered later. As a rule, the phonetic composition of borrowed words is adapted to the phonological system of the Adyghe language.
Following the Circassian Genocide and expulsion in 1864, the majority of Adyghe speakers were scattered across the Ottoman Empire. The language spoken in the diaspora has diverged from the literary forms in the Caucasus. Diaspora communities often use Arabic or Turkish loanwords where the literary language uses Russian ones.
Dialects
Black Sea coast dialects
- Shapsug dialect
- *North Shapsugs, Great Shapsugs, Kuban Shapsugs dialect
- **Kfar Kama dialect
- *Temirgoy-Shapsugs, Pseuşko accent
- *South Shapsugs, Small Shapsugs, Coastal Shapsugs, Black Sea Shapsugs dialect
- *Hakuchi dialect
- Natukhai dialect
- Zhaney dialect
Kuban River dialects
- Bzhedug dialect : spoken by Circassians in the Republic of Adygea and the Biga district of the city of Çanakkale in Turkey
- Temirgoy : literary standard of Adyghe. Also spoken by Circassians in the Republic of Adygea
- Abzakh dialect : spoken by Circassians in the village of Rehaniya in Israel and Circassians in Syria from the Golan Heights
- Mamkhegh dialect
- Yegeruqay dialect
- Hatuqay dialect
- Makhosh dialect
Phonology
Adyghe exhibits between 50 and 60 consonants depending on the dialect. All dialects possess a contrast between plain and labialized glottal stops. A very unusual minimal contrast, and possibly unique to the Abzakh dialect of Adyghe, is a three-way contrast between plain, labialized and palatalized glottal stops. The Shapsug (Black Sea) dialect of Adyghe contains a very uncommon sound: a voiceless bidental fricative, which corresponds to the voiceless velar fricative found in other varieties of Adyghe. This sound is only known to be used in the Black Sea dialect.- These consonants exist only in borrowed words.
- In the Black Sea coast Adyghe dialects there exist a palatalized voiced velar stop, a palatalized voiceless velar stop and a palatalized velar ejective that were merged with, and in most Adyghe dialects. For example the Shapsug words "гьанэ" "shirt", "кьэт" "chicken" and "кӏьапсэ" "rope" are pronounced in other dialects as "джанэ", "чэт" and кӏапсэ.
| Central | |
| Mid | |
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| Open |
Grammar
Adyghe, like all Northwest Caucasian languages, has a basic subject–object–verb typology and is characterised by the ergative construction of sentences.Orthography
History
Widespread literacy in Adyghe did not exist until the modern era. The official alphabet for Adyghe is the Cyrillic script, which has been used since 1936.In the 13th–15th centuries, as a result of the influence of Byzantine Empire and the Genoese Republic, Adyghe used Greek and, to a lesser extent, Italian scripts. In the 14th century, along with Islam, the Arabic script was adopted for Adyghe. It was referred to as Ajam, a writing system for the native language based on the Perso-Arabic script. Since Adyghe has many more consonants than Arabic, the Ajam system required adding special diacritical marks or inventing new letters to represent sounds.
In 1853, the Adyghe educator Umar Bersey published the first "Primer of the Circassian Language" based on the Arabic script. The Arabic script was used until 1927, when as a part of the Soviet "Latinisation" campaign, a Latin-based alphabet was adopted. It was developed by the linguist N.F. Yakovlev and the Adyghe scholar Daud Ashkhamaf. In the late 1930s, the script was converted to Cyrillic to align with Russian.
| Date | Author / Creator | Script Base | Description & Historical Context |
| 17th Century | Evliya Çelebi | Arabic / Ottoman | Recorded Adyghe linguistic material in his travel notes. |
| c. 1820s | Sheretluk Hadji-Notauk | Arabic | A Shapsug nobleman educated in the "Arab East", considered the founder of the Adyghe Enlightenment. He opened a school on the Bogundyr River and created one of the first Arabic-based Circassian grammars. However, he burned his manuscripts, "to preserve traditional oral culture against "civilizational" threats". |
| 1830s | Sultan Khan-Giray | Cyrillic | Adapted the Cyrillic alphabet for his ethnographic work "Notes on Circassia" to record Circassian legends. |
| 1840–1843 | Shora Nogmov | Cyrillic / Arabic | A Kabardian noble who initially developed a Cyrillic alphabet before switching to Arabic/Persian. |
| 1846 | Leonty Lyulye | Cyrillic | Published a dictionary using a modified Russian alphabet. Criticized by Pyotr Uslar for failing to reflect phonetics. |
| 1853 | Umar Bersey | Arabic | Published the "Primer of the Circassian Language" in Tiflis on March 14, 1853. This date is celebrated as the "Day of the Adyghe Language and Writing." |
| 1860s | Kazi Atazhukin & Pyotr Uslar | Cyrillic | Developed a Kabardian alphabet based on Cyrillic, believing the Russian script was politically and practically suitable for Caucasian languages. |
| 1897 | Tharxet Ahmet Cavit Pasha | Arabic | Created an alphabet later used in the newspaper Ghuaze, published by the Circassian Union and Mutual Aid Society. |
| 1902–1912 | Various Diaspora Authors | Arabic / Latin | Various attempts in the Ottoman diaspora:
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| 1918 | Seferbiy Siyukhov / Ahmed Bekukh | Arabic | Siyukhov prepared an alphabet for the Adyghe dialect, officially adopted for teaching and publishing. It remained in use until 1927. |
| 1918–1929 | Blanau Batok | Latin / Arabic | Published a Latin primer in Constantinople and an Arabic primer in Damascus. |
| 1923 | N. F. Yakovlev | Cyrillic | A Cyrillic project proposed by Yakovlev prior to the shift toward Latinization. |
| 1927 | N. F. Yakovlev & D. A. Ashkhamaf | Latin | Officially adopted for the West Circassian language by the Regional Department of Public Education. It established the Temirgoy dialect as the literary standard. |
| 1936 | T'ut'e Borikey | Cyrillic | Early transition to Cyrillic for Kabardian. |
| 1937–1938 | N. F. Yakovlev & D. A. Ashkhamaf | Cyrillic | Due to shifting Soviet nationality policies, scripts were converted to Cyrillic. The Adyghe alphabet followed the Kabardian one in 1938. It uses di- and trigraphs and remains the basis for the modern script. |
| 1952 | K’ube Şaban | Latin | A Latin alphabet prepared in the diaspora. |
| 1989 | Official Standard | Cyrillic | Legislative consolidation of the alphabet. |
| 2012 | R.I. Dawur | Tamga / Symbols | Prepared "Circassian Calligraphy", attempting to create a unique alphabet by converting ancient family symbols into letters. |
| 2012 | Ali İhsan Tarı | Latin | Prepared by the founder of the Adyghe Language Association in Konya. |
| 2018 | Nezhdet Meshvez | Cyrillic | An experimental textbook replacing most digraphs/trigraphs with diacritical marks to simplify learning. |
| Cyrillic | Arabic | Latin | IPA | Pronunciation | Examples |
| А а | ا | italic=no | |||
| Б б | ب | italic=no | |||
| В в | ڤ | italic=no | , | ||
| Г г | ݝ | italic=no | |||
| Гу гу | گو | italic=no | гущыӏ, gwśyx̧, 'word' | ||
| Гъ гъ | غ | italic=no | |||
| Гъу гъу | غو | italic=no | |||
| Д д | د | italic=no | |||
| Дж дж | ج | italic=no | |||
| Дз дз | ذ | italic=no | |||
| Дзу дзу | ذو | italic=no | |||
| Е е | ئە / ەي | italic=no | |||
| Ё ё | – | italic=no | |||
| Ж ж | ڒ | italic=no | |||
| Жъ жъ | ظ | italic=no | |||
| Жъу жъу | ظو | italic=no | |||
| Жь жь | ژ | italic=no | |||
| З з | ز | italic=no | |||
| И и | ئي / ي | italic=no | |||
| Й й | ي | italic=no | |||
| К к | ك | italic=no | |||
| Ку ку | کو | italic=no | |||
| Къ къ | ق | italic=no | |||
| Къу къу | قو | italic=no | |||
| Кӏ кӏ | ڃ | italic=no | |||
| Кӏу кӏу | ࢰو | italic=no | |||
| Л л | ل | italic=no | |||
| Лъ лъ | ݪ | italic=no | |||
| Лӏ лӏ | ࢦ | italic=no | |||
| М м | م | italic=no | |||
| Н н | ن | italic=no | |||
| О о | ئۆ / ۆ | italic=no | |||
| П п | پ | italic=no | |||
| Пӏ пӏ | ࢠ | italic=no | |||
| Пӏу пӏу | ࢠو | italic=no | |||
| Р р | ر | italic=no | rix̧on 'to tell' | ||
| С с | س | italic=no | |||
| Т т | ت | italic=no | |||
| Тӏ тӏ | ط | italic=no | |||
| Тӏу тӏу | طو | italic=no | |||
| У у | و | italic=no | |||
| Ф ф | ف | italic=no | |||
| Х х | ݗ | italic=no | |||
| Хъ хъ | خ | italic=no | |||
| Хъу хъу | خو | italic=no | |||
| Хь хь | ح | italic=no | |||
| Ц ц | ث | italic=no | |||
| Цу цу | ثو | italic=no | |||
| Цӏ цӏ | ڗ | italic=no | |||
| Ч ч | چ | italic=no | |||
| Чъ чъ | x15px | italic=no | чъыӏэ čyx̧e 'cold' | ||
| Чӏ чӏ | x15px | italic=no | |||
| Ш ш | x18px | italic=no | |||
| Шъ шъ | ص | italic=no | |||
| Шъу шъу | صو | italic=no | |||
| Шӏ шӏ | ض | italic=no | |||
| Шӏу шӏу | ضو | italic=no | |||
| Щ щ | ش | italic=no | |||
| – | – | – | |||
| Ы ы | ئہـ / ہ | italic=no | |||
| – | – | ||||
| Э э | ئە / ە | italic=no | ӏэтаж x̧etaž 'floor' | ||
| Ю ю | یو | italic=no | |||
| Я я | یا | italic=no | |||
| Ӏ ӏ | ئ | X̧ x̧ | ӏэ x̧e 'hand' | ||
| Ӏу ӏу | ؤ | X̧w x̧w | ӏукӏэн x̧wḉen 'to meet'ӏусын x̧wsyn 'to be sitting near'ӏудан x̧wdan 'thread' |
Orthography rules
- The letter is not written after a, or a labialised consonant. For example: унэ "house" instead of уынэ.
- In case the letter is the first letter of a word or when it is not related to any other consonant, it is pronounced as . For example: унэ instead of уынэ. When it is related to a consonant, it becomes a vowel and pronounced as . For example: чэту 'cat' instead of чэтыу.
- In case a labialised consonant is followed by a vowel, instead of the letter there is a. For example: гъогу 'road' instead of гъуэгу.
- In case a labialised consonant is followed by a vowel or, the labialised consonant letter is written fully. For example: цуакъэ 'shoes'.
- In case the letter is the first letter of a word or when it is not related to any other consonant, it is pronounced as . For example, о 'you' instead of уэ.
- In case the letter is the first letter of a word or when it is not related to any other consonant, it is pronounced as . For example: еӏо 'he says' instead of йэӏо. When it is related to a consonant, it becomes a vowel and pronounced as . For example: делэ 'fool' instead of дэйлэ.
- In case the letter is the first letter of a word or when is not related to any other consonant, it is pronounced as . For example: илъэс 'year' instead of йылъэс. When it is related to a consonant, it becomes a vowel and pronounced as . For example: сиӏ 'I have' instead of сыйӏ.
Vowels
The vowels are written, and . Other letters represent diphthongs: represents, or, or, represent or, and represents or.Other writing systems
The language of Adyghe is officially written in the Cyrillic script, and is also unofficially written in the Latin script. Before 1927, Adyghe was written in a version of the Perso-Arabic script; after the Soviet Latinisation campaign, an older variant of the Latin alphabet had been in use in the Soviet Union until 1938, when all Soviet languages transitioned into the Cyrillic alphabet.Prior to the mid-19th century, Adyghe had no writing system. Starting from 1853, the process of creating an orthography for Adyghe was started. In Tbilisi in 1853, a document titled "" was published, in which an Perso-Arabic-based orthography influenced by the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was developed. This document became the first ever publication in Adyghe. In this document, several new letters were introduced to represent the consonants that exist in Adyghe language. This proposed orthography, although with many shortcomings, received widespread approval and usage. And thus, Perso-Arabic script became the accepted orthography for Adyghe.
Over the following decades, several authors attempted to further improve the Adyghe Arabic orthography. The most successful attempt was the alphabet created by Akhmetov Bekukh. In this version, letters were designated for vowel sounds, and the orthography was transformed from an "Impure abjads to a true alphabet. In 1918, on the initiative of the Kuban Revolutionary Committee, a primer was published in Yekaterinodar. This official endorsement resulted in a literary boom in Adyghe and the publication of various newspapers, textbooks and other literature, including the Adyghe Maq, the main Adyghe language newspaper established in 1923.
During the abovementioned decades, parallel with this process, the Perso-Arabic orthography had also been standardized for the sister Circassian language of Kabardian. Although very similar in many aspects, there were minor variations, in which letters were included based on each respective phonology, and there were minor differences in presentation of a few consonants as well.
Adyghe Arabic alphabet
Below table shows the Adyghe Perso-Arabic alphabet as it was officially adopted between 1918 and 1927.Adyghe Latin alphabet
The Adyghe orthography was officially switched to the Latin alphabet in 1927. The Adyghe Latin alphabet was compiled and finalized a year prior, in 1926. This alphabet was the sole official script in the Soviet Union. The Adyghe Latin alphabet consisted of 50 letters, many of them newly created, some even borrowed from Cyrillic. Another interesting feature of this iteration of the Adyghe Latin alphabet was that there was no distinction between lower case and upper case letters. Each letter only had one single case.Below table shows Adyghe Latin alphabet as it was officially adopted between 1927 and 1938.
Latin alphabet in Turkey
In 2012, the Circassian Language Association in Turkey has issued a call for the Circassian people for the creation of a standard Latin script to be used by all Circassian people on the globe. Their main motivation for the creation of this alphabet was that the majority of Circassian people live in Turkey and use the Latin alphabet in their daily life because they know Turkish. However, when trying to teach the language to the younger generation, teaching them a new alphabet takes time and makes the process more laborsome. ABX has created a Latin script based on the Turkish alphabet and chose the Abzakh dialect as their base because it is the dialect with the most speakers in Turkey. However, the alphabet employed by the Circassian Language Association has been criticized by others. Some suggested that they created the alphabet without a good understanding of the Circassian phonology and have not even considered former Latin alphabets used to write Circassian and that the use of the Latin script would sever the ties with the homeland. Despite the criticism, the CLA has obtained a €40,000 funding from the European Union for the recording of the Circassian language with a Latin script and the preparation of multi-media learning materials for the language, and the materials created by ABX were accepted by the Ministry of National Education to be taught in Secondary Schools. This decision was protested and legally objected by the Federation of Caucasian Associations who created the materials for Circassian and Abaza languages with the Cyrillic script; however, the court ruled in favour of the Latin alphabet created by the CLA and continued the use of their alphabet in Circassian courses. Some glyphs in the Temirgoy-based Cyrillic alphabet have no equivalent in the Abzakh-based Latin alphabet because of dialectal differences. The most notable of these differences is the lack of differentiation between post-alveolar, alveolo-palatal and retroflex sounds. Though there are some additional letters in the alphabet for Kabardian, the materials in the CLA website are primarily in Adyghe.| Latin | Aa | Bb | Cc | Ćć | Çç | Dd | Ee | Éé | Ff |
| Cyrillic | А а | ||||||||
| IPA | |||||||||
| Latin | Gg | Ǵǵ | Ğğ | Hh | Ḣḣ | Iı | İi | Jj | Kk |
| Cyrillic | |||||||||
| IPA | |||||||||
| Latin | Ḱḱ | Ll | Ĺĺ | Mm | Nn | Oo | Öö | Pp | Ṕṕ |
| Cyrillic | |||||||||
| IPA | |||||||||
| Latin | Rr | Ss | Śś | Šš | Şş | Tt | Ṫṫ | Uu | |
| Cyrillic | |||||||||
| IPA | |||||||||
| Latin | Üü | Ww | Xx | Yy | Zz | Źź | ` | Áá* | |
| Cyrillic | |||||||||
| IPA |
1) Ć is the equivalent of both Кӏ and Чӏ and shows the ejective potalveolar affricate. Qq, on the other hand, only corresponds to Кӏ and shows an ejective velar plosive.
2) Ç normally stands for Ч but when it is followed by Ü and Ö, it is equivalent to Цу in the Cyrillic script.
3) É and İ are not direct equivalents of Е and И. The Cyrillic letters denote the and sounds at the beginning of syllables and and sounds at the end. The Latin letters are only used for the sounds and . The diphthongs are written as "Ye" and "Yi", respectively.
4) Circassian languages do not have phonemic rounded vowels but the labialized consonants affect the vowels around them to create allophonic rounded vowels. The letters O, Ö, U and Ü are used to show these allophonic rounded vowels. O/Ö and U/Ü works similar to the vowel use О and У in the Adyghe Cyrillic alphabet with O/Ö showing labialized consonant+ combinations and U/Ü the labialized consonant+ combinations. However, Ö and Ü are used when these combinations occur next to postalveolar sounds. The diphthongal uses of О and У, i.e. and, are written as "We" and "Wı". Another use of Ö and Ü is writing Turkish loanwords containing these letters.
5) Wıçüpe is written with a ` or ' and has a complicated use. It is equivalent to Ӏ in its use an ejective marker but not as the glottal stop. The glottal stop is not written as a letter but is implied through the use of consecutive vowels like in "mıerıs". As many ejective sounds have their own letters, only some ejective sounds are written with the wıçüpe. Another use of wıçüpe is to show that an U at the end of a word represents a labialized consonant and not a labialized consonant + combination. For example, джэгу in Cyrillic is written cegu` to make sure that it is pronounced as a single syllable but wıçüpe is removed when the word takes a suffix and the allophonic is audible, as in cegum .
Examples of literary Adyghe
Loanwords
- There are thirteen labialised consonants; however, in some dialects, there are three additional ones: Кхъу, Ху and Чъу.
Adyghe outside Circassia
Adyghe is taught outside Circassia in Prince Hamza Ibn Al-Hussein Secondary School, a school for Jordanian Adyghes in Jordan's capital city of Amman. This school, established by the Jordanian Adyghes with support from the late king Hussein of Jordan, is one of the first schools for the Adyghe communities outside Circassia. It has around 750 Jordanian Adyghe students, and aims to preserve the Adyghe language and traditions among future generations.Adyghe is spoken by Circassians in Iraq and by Circassians in Israel, where it is taught in schools in their villages. It is also spoken by many Circassians in Syria, although the majority of Syrian Circassians speak Kabardian.