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Abkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken in Abkhazia, Georgia and Turkey by the Abkhazians. It has about 70,000-100,000 speakers in Abkhazia with probably up to several tens of thousands more living in Turkey. The Georgian constitution establishes Abkhaz as the second official language of Georgia within the territory of Abkhazia.
Classification Abkhaz is a 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"; several linguists, notably Sergei Starostin, posit a phylogenetic link between these two families. 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. Also, sometimes the North Caucasian families are grouped with the South Caucasian languages into a pan-Caucasian or Ibero-Caucasian macrofamily, 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 into one language, Abkhaz-Abaza, 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, and are the main reason why many other linguists prefer to keep the two separate. Most linguists (see for instance Chirikba 2003) believe that Ubykh is the closest relative of the Abkhaz-Abaza dialect continuum. Geographical distribution Abkhaz is spoken primarily in Abkhazia, where it is established as the official language by the self-proclaimed Republic of Abkhazia. The 1995 Constitution of Georgia also grants Abkhaz a status of the second official language along with Georgian. It is also spoken by a large Abkhaz Muhajir diaspora in Turkey though the exact number of Abkhaz-speakers in this country remains unknown due to a lack of official records. Dialects Abkhaz is generally viewed as having three major dialects: Consonants Like the other Northwest Caucasian languages, Abkhaz is very rich in consonants. Below is the IPA phoneme chart of the consonant phonemes of Abkhaz: Phonemes in green are found in the Bzyp and Sadz dialects of Abkhaz, but not in Abzhywa; phonemes in red are unique to the Bzyp dialect. The Sadz dialect also has distinctive consonant gemination; for example, Sadz Abkhaz contrasts ashes vs. worm, where Abzhywa and Bzyp Abkhaz have only the one form for both. The plain alveolopalatal affricates and fricatives have merged with their corresponding alveolars in Abzhywa and Sadz (e.g. Bzyp to know vs. Abzhywa ), and in Abzhywa the labialised alveolopalatal fricatives have merged with the corresponding postalveolars. The non-pharyngealised uvular fricatives of Abkhaz may be realised as either velar or uvular depending upon the context in which they are found; here, they have been ranged with the uvulars. Also, while the labialised palatal approximant is here placed with the approximants, it is actually the reflex of a labialised voiced pharyngeal fricative, preserved in Abaza. Vowels Abkhaz has only two distinctive vowels: an open vowel and a close vowel . These basic vowels have a wide range of allophones in different consonantal environments, with allophones and next to palatals, and next to labials, and and next to labiopalatals. also has a long variant , which is the reflex of old sequences of 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 and the adverbial. Writing system Abkhaz has had its own adaptation of the Cyrillic 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 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 Soviet years Abkhaz was banned as a literary language. Example text Дарбанзаалак ауаюы дшоуп ихы да6ъи0ны. Ауаа зегь зинлеи патулеи еийароуп. Ур0 ирымоуп ахшыюи аламыси, дара дарагь аешьеи аешьеи реи8ш еизыйазароуп. Translation: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Bibliography | ||||||||
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