| Adyghe | ||
|---|---|---|
| адыгэбзэ adygabze, adəgăbză | ||
| Spoken in | Russia, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Israel, United States, Republic of Macedonia, Iraq | |
| Region | Russia: Republic of Adygea | |
| Total speakers | 500,000 | |
| Language family | Northwest Caucasian
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| Official status | ||
| Official language in | Republic of Adygea | |
| Regulated by | No official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1 | None | |
| ISO 639-2 | ady | |
| ISO 639-3 | ady | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Adyghe language (адыгaбзэ, adygabze, adəgăbză) is one of the two official languages of the Republic of Adygea in the Russian Federation, the other being Russian. It is spoken by various tribes of the Adyghe people: Abzekh, Adamey, Bzhedugh; Hatukuay, Kemirgoy, Makhosh; Natekuay, Shapsigh; Zhane, Yegerikuay, each with its own dialect. The language referred to by its speakers as Adygebze or Adəgăbză, and alternatively spelled in English as Adygean, Adygeyan or Adygei. It is also known as Circassian.
There are apparently around 128,000 speakers of the language on the native territory in Russia, almost all of them are mother-tongue speakers. In the whole world, some 300,000 speak the language. The largest Adyghe-speaking community is in Turkey, spoken by the post Russo-Caucasian war diaspora.
Adyghe belongs to the family of Northwest Caucasian languages. Kabardian is a very close relative, treated by some as a dialect of Adyghe or of an overarching Circassian language. The Ubykh, Abkhaz, and Abaza languages are also close relatives thereof.
The language was standardized after the October Revolution. Since 1938, Adyghe has used the Cyrillic alphabet. Before that, an Arabic-based alphabet was used together with the Latin.
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Phonology
Adyghe exhibits a large number of consonants: between fifty and sixty consonants in the various Adyghe dialects. All dialects possess a contrast between plain and labialised glottal stops; a very unusual minimal contrast, and possibly unique to the Abdzakh dialect of Adyghe, is a three-way contrast between plain, labialised and palatalised glottal stops (although palatalised glottal stop is also found in Hausa). The Black Sea dialect of Adyghe contains a highly unusual sound: a bidental fricative [h̪͆] which corresponds to the voiceless velar fricative [x] found in other varieties of Adyghe.
Grammar
Adyghe, like all Northwest Caucasian languages, has a basic Subject Object Verb typology, and is characterized by an ergative construction of the sentence.
Orthography
| А а | Б б | В в | Г г | Гу гу | Гъ гъ | Гъу гъу | Д д |
| Дж дж | Джъ джъ | Дз дз | Дзу дзу | Е е | Ё ё | Ж ж | Жъ жъ |
| Жъу жъу | Жь жь | З з | И и | Й й | К к | Ку ку | Къ къ |
| Къу къу | КI кI | КIу кIу | Л л | Лъ лъ | ЛI лI | М м | Н н |
| О о | П п | ПI пI | ПIу пIу | Р р | С с | Т т | ТI тI |
| ТIу тIу | У у | Ф ф | Х х | Хъ хъ | Хъу хъу | Хь хь | Ц ц |
| ЦI цI | Ч ч | ЧI чI | Ш ш | Щ щ | Ъ ъ | Ы ы | Ь ь |
| Э э | Ю ю | Я я | I |
Note: In the table above the appearances of the letter "I" render the specific character, "palochka".
Teaching Adyghe language out of Circassia (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan)
The Adyghian language is taught out of Circassia in a Jordanian School for the Jordanian Adyghas, Prince Hamza Ibn Al-Hussein Secondary School in Amman, which was established by the Adyghian Jordanians, with a large support from His Majesty late king Hussein of Jordan, and has an excellent reputation as a pioneer school for the Adyghian communities out of Circassia (Adyghian Diaspora), with around 750 Jordanian Adygian students, and one of its major goals is to preserve the Adyghian language among newer Adygian generations, nevertheless to emphasize on the traditions of the Adyghians.
UNESCO 2009 Map about the Endangered Languages
The Status of the Adyghe Language in 2009 According to the UNESCO 2009 map titled "UNESCO Map of the World's Languages in Danger", The Adyghe Language with all of it dialects (Adyghe-(Western Circassians Tribes)) and (Kabard-Cherkess-(Eastern Circassians Tribes) classified as a vulnerable language(not safe), hence the Adyghe nation in Circassia and Diaspora should concern in developing the language, and to emphasize the importance of it.,(20MB)"UNESCO Map of World's language in Danger". http://cms01.unesco.org/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/CLT/pdf/UNESCO-EndangeredLanguages-WorldMap-20090218.pdf. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
External links
- Adyghe alphabet
- Adyghe Alphabet and Cyrillic Board
- Adyghe Sample at Language Museum
- Ethnologue: Adyghe
- Learning Adyghe resource
- ~АДЫГЭБЗЭ~ADIGEBZE
- Rferl North Caucasus Radio
- Adyghe transliteration tool
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