Kabardian (), also known as , is a

Northwest Caucasian language The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes Pontic languages (from Ancient Greek, ''pontos'', referring to the Black Sea, in contrast to the Northeast Caucasian l ...

, that is widely considered to be the eastern

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

of Adyghe. While some Soviet linguists have treated the two as distinct languages, the

Circassians The Circassians or Circassian people, also called Cherkess or Adyghe (Adyghe language, Adyghe and ), are a Northwest Caucasian languages, Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation who originated in Circassia, a region and former country in t ...

(including Kabardian people) consider the eastern and western language variants to be dialects of one Circassian language. It is spoken mainly in parts of the

North Caucasus The North Caucasus, or Ciscaucasia, is a subregion in Eastern Europe governed by Russia. It constitutes the northern part of the wider Caucasus region, which separates Europe and Asia. The North Caucasus is bordered by the Sea of Azov and the B ...

republics of

Kabardino-Balkaria Kabardino-Balkaria (), officially the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, is a republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus. As of the 2021 Census, its population was 904,200. Its capital is Nalchik. The area contains the highest mountain in ...

and

Karachay-Cherkessia Karachay-Cherkessia (), officially the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, is a republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus. It is administratively part of the North Caucasian Federal District. As of the 2021 census, Karachay-Cherkessia has a popul ...

(Eastern Circassia), and in

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

and

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

(the extensive post-war diaspora). It has 47 or 48 consonant

phonemes A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...

, of which 22 or 23 are

fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...

s, depending upon whether one counts as phonemic, but it has only 3 phonemic vowels. It is one of very few languages to possess a clear phonemic distinction between

ejective In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...

affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...

s and ejective

fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

. Some linguists argue that Kabardian is only one dialect of an overarching Adyghe or

Circassian language Circassian (; ), also known as Cherkess ( ), is a subdivision of the Northwest Caucasian language family, spoken by the Circassian people. There are two main variants of the Circassian language, defined by their literary standards, Adyghe (; a ...

, which consists of all of the dialects of Adyghe and Kabardian together, and the Kabardians themselves most often refer to their language using the Circassian term ''Adighabze'' ("Adyghe language"). Several linguists, including

Georges Dumézil Georges Edmond Raoul Dumézil (4 March 189811 October 1986) was a French Philology, philologist, Linguistics, linguist, and religious studies scholar who specialized in comparative linguistics and comparative mythology, mythology. He was a prof ...

, have used the terms "eastern Circassian" (Kabardian) and "western Circassian" (Adyghe) to avoid that confusion, but both "Circassian" and "Kabardian" may still be found in linguistic literature. There are several key phonetic and lexical differences that create a reasonably well-defined separation between the eastern and the western Circassian dialects, but the degree to which the two are

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

has not yet been determined. The matter is also complicated somewhat by the existence of Besleney, which is usually considered a dialect of Kabardian but also shares many features with certain dialects of Adyghe. Kabardian is written in a form of

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

and serves as the literary language for Circassians in both Kabardino-Balkaria (where it is usually called the "Kabardian language") and Karachay-Cherkessia (where it is called the "Cherkess language"). Like all other Northwest Caucasian languages, Kabardian is ergative and has an extremely complex verbal system. Since 2004, the Turkish broadcasting corporation TRT has maintained a half-an-hour programme a week in the Terek dialect of Kabardian.

Dialects

*East Circassian **Kabardian ***West Kabardian ****Kuban ****Kuban-Zelenchuk (

Cherkes The Circassians or Circassian people, also called Cherkess or Adyghe ( Adyghe and ), are a Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation who originated in Circassia, a region and former country in the North Caucasus. As a consequence of the Ci ...

s) *** Central Kabardian ****Baksan (basis for the literary language) ****Malka *** Eastern Kabardian ****Terek ****Mozdok *** North Kabardian ****Mulka ****Zabardiqa (1925 until 1991 ''Soviet Zaparika'') ** Baslaney dialect ()

Phonology

The phoneme written ''Л л'' is pronounced as a

voiced alveolar lateral fricative The voiced alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is (sometime ...

mostly by the Circassians of

Kabarda The Grand Principality of Great Kabarda, also known as East Circassia or Kabardia (), was a historical country in the North Caucasus corresponding partly to modern-day Kabardino-Balkaria. It existed as a political community from the fifteenth ce ...

and Cherkessia, but many Kabardians pronounce it as an

alveolar lateral approximant The voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants are a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral ...

in diaspora. The series of

labialized Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels invol ...

alveolar sibilant affricates and fricatives that exist in Adyghe became

labiodental In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth, such as and . In English, labiodentalized /s/, /z/ and /r/ are characteristic of some individuals; these may be written . Labiodental consonants in ...

consonants in Kabardian, for example the Kabardian words ''мафӏэ'' "fire", ''зэвы'' "narrow", ''фыз'' "wife" and ''вакъэ'' "shoe" are pronounced as ''машӏо'' , ''зэжъу'' , ''шъуз'' and ''цуакъэ'' in Adyghe. Kabardian has a labialized

voiceless velar fricative The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English, e.g. in ''lo ...

which correspond to Adyghe , for example the Adyghe word "тфы" ( "five" is тху () in Kabardian. In the Beslenei dialect, there exists an alveolar lateral ejective affricate which corresponds to in literary Kabardian.UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive – Recording Details for Kabardian Baslanei dialect
In the first word list calle

The words "man" and "quarter" are pronounced as and compare to Standard Kabardian and The Turkish Kabardians (Uzunyayla) and

Besleney The Besleney ( Circassian: Bеслъэней, ; ) are one of the twelve major Circassian tribes, representing one of the twelve stars on the green-and-gold Circassian flag. By character, culture and language, the Besleney are closest to Kabardi ...

s have a palatalized

voiced velar stop The voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. Some languages have the voiced pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypic ...

and a palatalized

velar ejective The velar ejective is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Features Features of the velar ejective: Occurrence See also * List of ...

which corresponds to and in literary Kabardian.

Consonants

# In some Kabardian dialects (e.g. Baslaney dialect, Uzunyayla dialect), there is a palatalized

and a palatalized

that were merged with and in most Kabardian dialects. For example, the Baslaney words "гьанэ" "shirt" and "кӏьапсэ" "rope" are pronounced in other Kabardian dialects as "джанэ" and кӏапсэ . # Consonants that exist only in borrowed words. The glottalization of the ejective stops (but not fricatives) can be quite weak, and has been reported to often be

creaky voice In linguistics, creaky voice (sometimes called laryngealisation, pulse phonation, vocal fry, or glottal fry) refers to a low, scratchy sound that occupies the vocal range below the common vocal register. It is a special kind of phonation in which ...

, that is, to have laryngealized voicing. Something similar seems to have happened historically in the Veinakh languages.

Vowels

Kabardian has a

vertical vowel system A vertical vowel system is the system of vowels in a language that requires only vowel height to phonemically distinguish vowels. Theoretically, rounding, frontness and backness could also be used in one-dimensional vowel systems; however, ''v ...

. Although many surface vowels appear, they can be analyzed as consisting of at most the following three phonemic vowels: , and .Halle, Morris. "Is Kabardian a Vowel-Less Language?" ''Foundations of Language'', Vol. 6, No. 1 (Feb., 1970), pp. 95–103.Kuipers, Aert. "Phoneme and Morpheme in Kabardian", 1960, ''Janua Linguarum: Series Minor'', Nos. 8–9. 's-Gravenhage: Mouton and Co.
/ref> The following allophones of the short vowels , appear: According to Kuipers, :These symbols must be understood as each covering a wide range of sub-variants. For example, i stands for a sound close to cardinal in 'ji' "eight", for a sound close to English in "kit" in the word ''x'i'' "sea", etc. In fact, the short vowels, which are found only after consonants, have different variants after practically every series defined as to point of articulation and presence or absence of labialization or palatalization, and the number of variants is multiplied by the influence of the consonant (or zero) that follows. Most of the long vowels appear as automatic variants of a sequence of short vowel and glide, when it occurs in a single syllable: * = * = * = * = This leaves only the vowel . Kuipers claims that this can be analyzed as underlying when word-initial, and underlying elsewhere, based on the following facts: * occurs only in the plural suffix , which does not occur word-initially. * is the only word-initial vowel; analyzing it as makes the language underlyingly universally consonant-initial. *Certain complications involving stress and morphophonemic alternations are dramatically simplified by these assumptions. Halle finds Kuipers' analysis "exemplary". Gordon and Applebaum note this analysis, but also note that some authors disagree, and as a result prefer to maintain a phoneme . In a later section of his monograph, Kuipers also attempts to analyze the two vowels phonemes and out of existence. Halle, however, shows that this analysis is flawed, as it requires the introduction of multiple new phonemes to carry the information formerly encoded by the two vowel phonemes. The vowel appears in some loan words; it is often pronounced . The diphthong is pronounced in some dialects. may be realised as , as and as . This monophthongisation does not occur in all dialects. The vowels can have the semi-vowel in front of it.

Orthography

The official alphabet used for writing Kabardian, is Cyrillic alphabet, including additional letters, totalling 59 letters. Digraphs, trigraphs, and one tetragraph, are counted as independent letters on their own. The Cyrillic alphabet in its current form has been the official alphabet since 1938. Kabardian alphabet, while having minor differences reflecting dialectical variations, is very similar to orthography of the

Adyghe language Adyghe ( or ; also known as West Circassian) is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken by the western subgroups of Circassians. It is spoken mainly in Russia, as well as in Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Israel, where Circassians settled after ...

, the other prominent Circassian language. Kabardian is also unofficially written and taught in Latin, in some diaspora communities, especially in Turkey where government-backing of a Latin-based script has been a cause for controversy and opposition among Kabardians who still overwhelmingly favor Cyrillic.

History

Prior to the 19th century, Kabardian did not have a literary tradition yet, and it did not have a native orthography. At the time,

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish (, ; ) was the standardized register of the Turkish language in the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian. It was written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet. ...

was used as the literary language by Circassians. Starting in the 1820s, efforts at compiling and standardizing Arabic-based scripts were undertaken by various Kabardian literaturists, and by the early 1920s, an officially-adopted Perso-Arabic-based script was in widespread educational and literary use. However, in 1924, Kabardian Arabic alphabet was discarded and replaced with Latin.. A second version of Latin script was adopted in 1930. This lasted for another 6 years, and in 1936, Latin alphabet was discarded in favour of Cyrillic. Kabardian Cyrillic alphabet underwent an iteration of modification in 1938, and the 1938 version has been in popular and official use ever since. The first ever notable attempt at compiling an orthography for Kabardian was conducted by famous Kabardian poet, Sh. Nogma, in 1825. His alphabet consisted of 42 letters, including 15 letters introduced by him, some of which had unusual forms, diverging from the conventional ''

rasm ''Rasm'' ( ) is an Arabic writing script often used in the early centuries of Classical Arabic literature (7th centuryearly 11th century AD). It is the same as today's Arabic script except for the difference that the Arabic diacritics are omi ...

'' (base of letters which are then used for addition of dots and diacritics). His alphabet thus did not take hold. In 1830, in collaboration with Russian philologist and orientalist, , Nogma developed a Cyrillic-based script for Kabardian. In 1865, an alphabet book in a Kabardian orthography similar to that of Abkhaz was written by , based on an orthography used by Peter von Uslar in 1862. It is as follows: Over the decades, the popularity in use of Arabic-derived script increased. In 1881, the poet compiled a standardized Perso-Arabic script for Kabardian consisting of 39 letters. He published various literature and wrote poetry in this version of the alphabet. The Arabic alphabet was gaining universal acceptance and increasing usage among Kabardian Circassians. In 1908, Nuri Tsagov compiled another iteration of the Perso-Arabic alphabet, better suited for all consonant and vowel phonemes of Kabardian. This version of the alphabet was widely accepted, with many authors utilizing it to publish books and literature, including a primer. The alphabet gained official status in education and later also inspired the standardization of Arabic-based orthography for

by Akhmetov Bekukh. In line with the general linguistic policy of the Soviet Union at the time, the existing Perso-Arabic script was replaced with a newly developed Kabardian Latin alphabet in 1924. Khuranov is credited for first compiling the first version of Latin alphabet in May 1923. This version closely resembled the Latin alphabet adopted for

in 1927. This alphabet consisted of many newly created letters, some even borrowed from Cyrillic. Another interesting feature of this iteration of Adyghe Latin Alphabet was that there was no distinction between lower case and upper case letters. Each letter only had one single case. The alphabet consisted of а b w d g ꜧ Latin small letter Ghe with middle hook

е ӡ z ž ⱬ i j k ⱪ q qh l Latin small letter L with descender

lh m n o p ph r s š ş t th v f fh x х̌ ɦ c ç ch y h u è ù â ỳ. Kabardian Latin alphabet underwent another update in 1925. In this version, many of the newly created letters were removed in favour of introduction of accents and diacritics over base Latin letters. In this version, upper-case/lower-case distinction was reintroduced. The alphabet consisted of the following letters: A a, B b, V v, D d, E e, G g, Gu gu, Z z, Ž ž, Z̧ z̧, Ӡ ӡ, Ꜧ ꜧ, Ꜧu ꜧu, I i, J j, K k, Ku ku, Ⱪ ⱪ, Ⱪu ⱪu, Q q, Qu qu, Qh qh, Qhu qhu, L l, Latin capital letter L with descender

, Lh lh, M m, N n, O o, P p, Ph ph, R r, S s, Š š, Ş ş, T t, Th th, U u, F f, Fh fh, X x, Xu xu, X̌ x̌, X̌u x̌u, ɦ, C c, Ç ç, Ch ch, Y y, H h, ', Ù ù, Je je, Jo jo, Ju ju, Ja ja. In 1930, the Kabardian Latin alphabet was replaced by a new version derived from the nationally-adopted new standard,

Yañalif The New Turkic Alphabet or Yañalif ( Tatar: jaꞑa əlifba/yaña älifba → jaꞑalif/yañalif, , Cyrillic: Яңалиф, "new alphabet"), is the first Latin alphabet used during the latinisation in the Soviet Union in the 1930s for the Turkic ...

. In 1936, Kabardian was one of the languages in the Soviet Union to switch to Cyrillic alphabet. , Kabardian public figure and linguist is credited with the compilation of the first official Cyrillic alphabet for Kabardian. They consisted of the following: А а, 'А 'а, Б б, В в, Г г, Гъ гъ, Д д, Е е, Ж ж, Жь жь, З з, И и, Й й, К к, К' к', Л л, Ль ль, Л' л', М м, Н н, О о, П п, П' п', Р р, С с, Т т, Т' т', У у, 'У 'у, Ф ф, Ф' ф', Х х, Хь хь, Хъ хъ, Ц ц, Ц' ц', Ч ч, Ш ш, Щ щ, Щ' щ', Ъ ъ, Ы ы, Ь ь, Э э, Ю ю, Я я. The extensive reliance on use of apostrophes made the alphabet inconvenient to learn and use. Thus two years later, in 1938, led a commission that reformed the Cyrillic alphabet to its present form. Among the diasporic Circassian communities, the situation with respect to orthography has been more complex. Some groups have advocated for use of Latin or Arabic in line with the language of the larger society in which Circassian communities reside. On the other hand, since the adoption of Cyrillic in

Circassia Circassia ( ), also known as Zichia, was a country and a historical region in . It spanned the western coastal portions of the North Caucasus, along the northeastern shore of the Black Sea. Circassia was conquered by the Russian Empire during ...

others have advocated for continued use of Cyrillic as it helps maintain contact with the Circassian homeland and the literary tradition there. This divergence goes back to the early 20th century, when in 1909, Muhammad Pchegatlukov developed a new and independent Arabic-based writing system in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. His proposed script did not manage to displace the main orthography of the time in the Circassian homeland, i.e. Nuri Tsagov's script. More recently, there has been developments in

. In the 2000s, the

Konya Konya is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium. In 19th-century accounts of the city in En ...

-based Adyghe Language Teaching Association (ADDER) has compiled a Latin alphabet for Kabardian. While many in the Circassian community have opposed the move, the endorsement of the project by Turkey's ruling party,

AK Party The Justice and Development Party ( , AK PARTİ), abbreviated officially as AK Party in English, is a political party in Turkey self-describing as conservative-democratic. It has been the ruling party of Turkey since 2002. Third-party sources ...

, has resulted in the boosting of ADDER script and its usage in development of new educational material. The alphabet consists of the following letters:A a, B b, C c, Ç ç, Ć ć, D d, E e, É é, F f, Ḟ ḟ, G g, Ǵ ǵ, Ğ ğ, H h, Ḣ ḣ, I ı, İ i, J j, Ĵ ĵ, K k, Ḱ ḱ, Ǩ ǩ, L l, Ĺ ĺ, M m, N n, O o, Ö ö, P p, Ṕ ṕ, Q q, R r, S s, Ś ś, Š š, Ş ş, Ṩ ṩ, T t, Ṫ ṫ, U u, Ü ü, W w, V v, X x, Y y, Z z, Ź ź, '6.Sınıf Adıgabze Çerkesçe Ders Kitabı pdf indir (Doğu Diyalekti). Link

Download link: https://www.mebders.com/indir/8373

Kabardian Cyrillic alphabet

The table below lists the 59-letter Kabardian Cyrillic alphabet. Dighraphs, trigraphs, and a tetragraph are counted as independent letters.

ADDER Latin alphabet

Since the Circassian genocide, genocide and forced expulsion of Circassians in their homeland in the second half of the 19th century, most Circassians have been living as diaspora communities in countries such as

, and elsewhere. In fact, more Circassians live in the diaspora than within

. As far as orthographic conventions among diasporic communities is concerned, a majority of diaspora Circasians have tried to follow the conventions and literary practices in place among people living in the Circassian homeland. This is to help diaspora communities maintain ties to their homeland. Therefore, before 1924, the Arabic-based scripts developed for

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

and Eastern (Kabardian) Circassian, also took roots among the diaspora communities. This is also why for the past decades up till today, the majority of Circassians, be they in

or elsewhere, have adopted the Cyrillic alphabet and insist on educating the new generation in Cyrillic alphabet. Nevertheless, the issue of orthography has not been without controversy among diaspora communities. In the 2000s in

, the

, has resulted in the boosting of ADDER script. Since then, government-endorsed education material and primers have been prepared in ADDER Latin script. Table below lists the 49-letter Kabardian Latin (ADDER) alphabet and their respective Cyrillic equivalents. Highlighted letters are not considered independent letters, but are digraphs and are used to correspond to specific Kabardian phonemes. , style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , S s

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , Ś ś

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , Š š

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , Ş ş

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" bgcolor="#d0dead" , Ş' ş'

, - , style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , Ṩ ṩ

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , T t

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , Ṫ ṫ

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , U u

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , Ü ü

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , W w

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , V v

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , X x

, - , style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , Y y

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , Z z

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , Ź ź

, style="width:5em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" , '

Kabardian Arabic alphabet

Below table shows Kabardian Perso-Arabic alphabet, as it was the official script of Kabardian Circassian between 1908 and 1924, compiled by Nuri Tsagov.

Grammar

Kabardian, like all Northwest Caucasian languages, has a basic agent–object–verb typology, and is characterized by

ergative–absolutive alignment In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the subject of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the subject of a transitive verb. Exa ...

Example

The following texts are excerpts from the official translations of the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal D ...