Adyghe (/ˈædɪɡeɪ/ or /ˌɑːdɪˈɡeɪ/;[3][a] also known as West Circassian) is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken by the western subgroups of Circassians.[4] It is spoken mainly in Russia, as well as in Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Israel, where Circassians settled after the Circassian genocide (c. 1864–1870) by the Russian Empire. It is closely related to the Kabardian (East Circassian) language, though some reject the distinction between the two languages in favor of both being dialects of a unitary Circassian language.
The literary standard of Adyghe is based on its Temirgoy dialect. Adyghe and Russian are the two official languages of the Republic of Adygea in the Russian Federation.
In Russia, there are around 128,000 speakers of Adyghe, almost all of them native speakers. In total, some 300,000 speak it worldwide. The largest Adyghe-speaking community is in Turkey, spoken by the diaspora from the Russian–Circassian War (c. 1763–1864). In addition, the Adyghe language is spoken by the Cherkesogai in Krasnodar Krai.
Adyghe belongs to the family of Northwest Caucasian languages. Kabardian (also known as East Circassian) is a very close relative, treated by some as a dialect of Adyghe or of an overarching Circassian language. Ubykh, Abkhaz and Abaza are somewhat more distantly related to Adyghe.
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 (although a palatalized glottal stop is also found in Hausa and a labialized one in Tlingit). The Shapsug (Black Sea) dialect of Adyghe contains a very uncommon sound: a voiceless bidental fricative [h̪͆], which corresponds to the voiceless velar fricative [x] found in other varieties of Adyghe. This sound is only known to be used in the Black Sea dialect.
In contrast to its large inventory of consonants, Adyghe has only three phonemic vowels in a vertical vowel system.[5]
Adyghe, like all Northwest Caucasian languages, has a basic subject–object–verb typology and is characterised by the ergative construction of sentences.
The official alphabet for Adyghe is the Cyrillic script, which has been used since 1936. Before that, the Arabic script was used.
In 2012, the Circassian Language Association (Adyghe: Адыге Бзэ Хасэ; Turkish: Adıge Dil Derneği; danef.com) 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.[6] 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. They 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[7] and that the use of the Latin script would sever the ties with the homeland.[8] 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,[9] and the materials created by ABX were accepted by the Ministry of National Education to be taught in Secondary Schools.[10] This decision was protested and legally objected by the Federation of Caucasian Associations (Turkish: Kafkas Dernekleri Federasyonu; KAFFED) who created the materials for Circassian and Abaza languages with the Cyrillic script;[11] however, the court ruled in favour of the Latin alphabet created by the CLA and continued the use of their alphabet in Circassian courses.[12] Some glyphs in the Temirgoy-based Cyrillic alphabet have no equivalent in the Abzakh-based Latin alphabet because of dialectal differences. Though there are some additional letters in the alphabet for Eastern Circassian, the materials in the CLA website are in West Circassian.[13]
The vowels are written ⟨ы⟩ [ə], ⟨э⟩ [ɐ] and ⟨а⟩ [aː]. Other letters represent diphthongs: ⟨я⟩ represents [jaː], ⟨и⟩ [jə] or [əj], ⟨о⟩ [wɐ] or [ɐw], ⟨у⟩ represent [wə] or [əw], and ⟨е⟩ represents [jɐ] or [ɐj].
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 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 "Primer of the Circassian Language" (Archive) was published, in which an 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, Arabic script became the accepted orthography for Adyghe.[15]
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.[15]
During the abovementioned decades, parallel with this process, the 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.[15][16]
Below table shows the Adyghe Arabic alphabet as it was officially adopted between 1918 and 1927.[15][17]
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.[15]
Below table shows Adyghe Latin alphabet as it was officially adopted between 1927 and 1938.[15]
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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.[18]
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.[citation needed]
There are many books written in or translated into Adyghe. An Adyghe translation of the Quran by Ishak Mashbash is available.[19] The New Testament and many books of the Old Testament have been published in Adyghe by the Institute for Bible Translation in Moscow.
According to the UNESCO 2009 map entitled "UNESCO Map of the World's Languages in Danger", the status of the Adyghe language in 2009, along with all its dialects (Adyghe, Western Circassian tribes; and Kabard-Cherkess, Eastern Circassian tribes), is classified as vulnerable.[20]
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