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Abkhaz Language
*** Shopping-Tip: Abkhaz Language
{{language
|name=Abkhaz
|nativename=Ð?ҧÑ?уа, Aṗsua
|familycolor=Caucasian
|states=
Abkhazia,
Turkey
|region=
Caucasia
|speakers=600,000
|fam1=
North Caucasian languages North Caucasian
|fam2=
Northwest Caucasian languages Northwest Caucasian
|fam3=Abkhaz-Abazin
|nation=
Abkhazia
|iso1=ab|iso2=abk|iso3=abk}}
'''Abkhaz''' is a
Northwest Caucasian languages Northwest Caucasian language spoken in
Abkhazia and
Turkey by the
Abkhazians. Abkhaz has about 100,000 speakers in Abkhazia with up to 500,000 more living in Turkey.
Classification
Abkhaz is a
Northwest Caucasian languages Northwest Caucasian language, indicating it originated in the northwest
Caucasus. Northwest Caucasian languages have been suggested as being related to the
Northeast Caucasian languages and both are often merged under the blanket term "
North Caucasian languages." Sometimes North Caucasian languages and
South Caucasian languages are grouped into the
Caucasian languages, but these have not been shown conclusively to be related and are widely considered to be a geographically based convention.
Abkhaz is often united with
Abaza language Abaza into one language,
Abkhaz-Abaza language Abkhaz-Abaza, of which the literary dialects of Abkhaz and Abaza are simply the most divergent forms. Grammatically, the two are very similar; however, the differences in phonology are substantial, and are the main reason why many other linguists prefer to keep the two separate.
Some consider the proposed North Caucasian family to be a member of the
Dene-Caucasian macrofamily; however, the Dene-Caucasian hypothesis is itself unproven and highly controversial, and attempts to categorize Abkhaz as a Dene-Caucasian language are thus premature.
Geographical distribution
Abkhaz is spoken primarily in
Abkhazia and
Turkey.
Official status
Abkhaz is the official language of
Abkhazia.
Dialects
Abkhaz is generally viewed as having three major dialects,
Abzhywa,
Bzyp (the Caucasian dialects) and
Sadz (in Turkey).
Sounds
{{IPA notice}}
Like the other Northwest Caucasian languages, Abkhaz is very rich in consonants, with 58, but has only a few vowels (either two or three, depending upon the analysis). Below is the
International Phonetic Alphabet IPA phoneme chart for the standard dialect (Abzhuy); the
Bzyp dialect has nine additional consonants, and the
Sadz dialect has a few less.
*Labials: {{IPA|p pʼ b v f w m}}
*Dentals: {{IPA|t tʼ d n}}
*Labialized dentals: {{IPA|tʷ tʼʷ dʷ}}
*Alveolar sibilants: {{IPA|ts tsʼ dz s z}}
*Labialized alveolar sibilants: {{IPA|tsʷ tsʼʷ dzʷ}}
*Palatalized alveolar sibilants: {{IPA|tsʲ tsʼʲ dzʲ sʲ zʲ}}
*Postalveolar sibilants: {{IPA|tʃ tʃʼ dʒ ʃ ʒ}}
*Labialized postalveolar sibilants: {{IPA|tʃʷ dʒʷ}}
*Lateral: {{IPA|l}}
*Rhotic trill: {{IPA|r}}
*Palatals: {{IPA|kʲ kʼʲ gʲ j}}
*Velars: {{IPA|k kʼ g}}
*Uvulars: {{IPA|qʼ χ ʁ}}
*Palatized uvulars: {{IPA|qʼʲ χʲ ʁʲ}}
*Labialized uvulars: {{IPA|qʼʷ χʷ ʁʷ}}
*Pharyngeals: {{IPA|ħ ħʷ}}
*Labiopalatal semivowel: {{IPA|ɥ}} (< {{IPA|ʕʷ}}, a labialized voiced pharyngeal fricative)
*Vowels: {{IPA|É™ a}} (with allophones {{IPA|[i]}} and {{IPA|[e]}} next to palatals, {{IPA|[o]}} and {{IPA|[u]}} next to labials)
Vowels
Abkhaz has only two distinctive vowels: an open vowel {{IPA|/a/}} and a close vowel {{IPA|/ı, ǝ/}}. Depending on the environment both of the vowels can be realized as {{IPA|[e,i,o,u]}}.
Typology
Abkhaz is typologically classified as an
agglutinative language. Like all other Northwest Caucasian languages, Abkhaz has an extremely complex verbal system coupled with a very simple noun system; Abkhaz distinguishes just two cases, the
nominative case nominative and the
adverbial case adverbial.
Writing system
Abkhaz has had its own adaptation of the
Cyrillic alphabet, the
Abkhaz alphabet, since
1862. The first alphabet was a 37 character
Cyrillic alphabet invented by Baron Peter von Uslar. In
1909 a 55 letter Cyrillic alphabet was used. A 75-letter Latin script devised by a Georgian linguist
Nikolai (Niko) Marr lasted from
1926 to
1928, when another Latin script was used. The Georgian script was imposed in
1938, but after the death of Stalin, an Abkhaz desire to remain separate from Georgians led to the reintroduction of the current Cyrillic alphabet in
1954 designed in 1892 by
Dimitri Gulya together with
Konstantin Machavariani and modified in 1909 by
Aleksey Chochua.
History
The earliest extant written records of the Abkhazian language are in the
Arabic alphabet, recorded by the Turkish traveller
Evliya Celebi in the
17th century. Abkhaz has only been used as a literary language for about 100 years. During the Stalinist Russian years Abkhaz was banned as a literary language.
Bibliography
* Chirikba, V. A. (1996) 'A Dictionary of Common Abkhaz'. Leiden.
* Chirikba, V. A. (2003) 'Abkhaz'. – Languages of the World/Materials 119. Muenchen: Lincom Europa.
* Hewitt, B. George (1979) 'Abkhaz: A descriptive Grammar'. Amsterdam: North Holland.
* Hewitt, B. George (1989) Abkhaz. In John Greppin (ed.), ''The Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus'' Vol. 2. Caravan Books, New York. 39-88.
* Vaux, Bert and Zihni Psiypa (1997) The Cwyzhy Dialect of Abkhaz. Harvard Working Papers in Linguistics 6, Susumu Kuno, Bert Vaux, and Steve Peter, eds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Linguistics Department.
External links
{{InterWiki|code=ab}}
-
Learn Abkhazian language!
-
Ethnologue entry for Abkhaz
-
Abkhaz entry in LanguageServer (University of Graz)
-
Abkhaz entry in The Rosetta Project
-
Abkhaz at Language Museum
Example of Abkhaz language: [http://www.kapba.de/A-Abtsara.html]
Category:Abkhazia
Category:Caucasian languages
Category:Languages of Turkey
ab:Ð?Ò§Ñ?уа бызшәа
an:Luenga abjasia
br:Abc'hazeg
de:Abchasische Sprache
es:Idioma abjaso
eo:Abĥaza lingvo
eu:Abkhaziko
fr:Abkhaze (langue)
gl:Lingua abkhaza
ko:압하스어
he:×?בחזית
ms:Bahasa Abkhaz
nl:Abchazisch
ja:アブ�ズ語
pl:Język abchaski
ru:Ð?бхазÑ?кий Ñ?зык
fi:Abhaasin kieli
sv:Abchaziska
zh:阿布哈兹è¯
see
Abkhaz language
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