Adyghe phonology explained

pronounced as /notice/Adyghe is a language of the Northwest Caucasian family which, like the other Northwest Caucasian languages, is very rich in consonants, featuring many labialized and ejective consonants. Adyghe is phonologically more complex than Kabardian, having the retroflex consonants and their labialized forms.

Consonants

Adyghe exhibits a large number of consonants: between 50 and 60 consonants in the various Adyghe dialects. Below is the IPA phoneme chart of the consonant phonemes of Adyghe.

		Labial		Bidental	Alveolar			Post- alveolar		Alveolo- palatal		Retroflex	Velar			Uvular		Pharyngeal	Glottal
Nasal		pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/
Plosive		pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/								pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/^[1]	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/^[2]
		pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/								pronounced as /link/^[3]	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/							pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/^[4]	pronounced as /link/
Affricate					pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
					pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
					pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/				pronounced as /link/
Fricative		pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
		pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
					pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Approximant										pronounced as /link/				pronounced as /link/
Trill					pronounced as /link/

1. Found in the Shapsug and Natukhai dialects.
2. Unique to the Abzakh dialect.
3. Non-native consonant.
4. Unique to the Hakuchi dialect.

• In the Black Sea coast dialects of Adyghe (e.g. Shapsug and Natukhai) there exist a palatalized voiced velar stop pronounced as /link/, a palatalized voiceless velar stop pronounced as /link/ and a palatalized velar ejective pronounced as /link/ that were merged with pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ in most Adyghe dialects.^{[5] [6] [7] [8]} For example, the Shapsug words "" "shirt", "" "chicken" and "" "rope" are pronounced in other dialects as "", "" and "" .
• The labialized retroflex consonants and in the literary Temirgoy dialect are alveolo-palatal and in the Black Sea coast dialects of Adyghe (Shapsug and Natukhai).
• In the Black Sea coast dialects of Adyghe (e.g. Shapsug and Natukhai) there exist an alveolar ejective fricative pronounced as /link/ that correspond to pronounced as /link/ in other Adyghe dialects.^[9] For example, the Shapsug words "" "name" and "" "lie" are pronounced in other dialects as "" and "" .
• The phoneme written is pronounced as a voiced alveolar lateral fricative pronounced as /link/ mostly by the Circassians of Adygea, but many Circassians in diaspora pronounce it as an alveolar lateral approximant pronounced as /link/.
• In Adyghe, the palato-alveolar consonants pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /[ʃʷʼ]/ may be affricated to pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /[ʈ͡ʂʷʼ]/ after the consonant pronounced as /[s]/ or pronounced as /[ʃʷ]/. For example, the words:

"I carried him to" → [sət͡ʃaːʁ]

"I knew": → [sət͡ʂʼaːʁ]

"I don't know": → [sət͡ʂʼɐrɐp]

"I thought" → [sət͡ʂʷʼɐʃʼəʁ]

"you (pl.) knew" → [ʃʷt͡ʂʼaːʁ].

• The first and second person prefixes pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /[ʃʷ]/ may become voiced pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /[ʒʷ]/ before the consonant pronounced as /link/. For example:

"I made him go" → [zʁɐkʷʼaːʁ]

"we made him go" → [dʁɐkʷʼaːʁ]

"you made him go" → [bʁɐkʷʼaːʁ]

"you (pl.) made him go" → [ʒʷʁɐkʷʼaːʁ].

• The phoneme pronounced as /link/ found in the Adyghe dialects correspond to [xʷ] in Kabardian. For example:

[tfə] "five" ↔ Kabardian: тху|italic=no [txʷə]

[fəʑə] "white" ↔ Kabardian: хужь|italic=no [xʷəʑ]

[t͡sʼəfə] "person" ↔ Kabardian: цӏыху|italic=no [t͡sʼəxʷ].

• In many Adyghe dialects (e.g. Bzhedug, Shapsug, Natukhia and Abzakh) there exist [t͡ɕʷ] that corresponds to standard Temirgoy [t͡sʷ] . For example, the Temirgoy word цуакъэ [t͡sʷaːqɐ] is [t͡ɕʷaːqɐ] in the other Adyghe dialects.
• 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.
• The Black Sea dialect of Adyghe contains a very uncommon sound: a bidental fricative pronounced as /[h̪͆]/, which corresponds to the voiceless velar fricative pronounced as /[x]/ found in other varieties of Adyghe.
• The Hakuchi dialect of Adyghe contains uvular ejective pronounced as /[qʼ]/ and a labialized uvular ejective pronounced as /[qʷʼ]/, which corresponds to the pronounced as /[ʔ]/ and pronounced as /[ʔʷ]/ in other dialects.

Vowels

In contrast to its large consonant inventory, Adyghe has only three phonemic vowels in a classic vertical vowel system. pronounced as //ə// and pronounced as //ɐ// have varying allophones, whereas pronounced as //aː// has a more limited set. Realization of vocalic allophones is based on the surrounding consonants.^{[10] [11] [12]}

	Central
Mid	pronounced as /ə/
Near-open	pronounced as /ɐ/
Open	pronounced as /aː/

• Lax vowels pronounced as //ə, ɐ// are usually rounded to pronounced as /[ɵ, ɞ]/ between labialized consonants within the same syllable; fronted to pronounced as /[ɪ, ɛ]/ in the environment of coronal and palatalized consonants; and retracted to pronounced as /[ɤ, ʌ]/ in the environment of uvular, pharyngeal and glottal consonants.^{[11] :16}
• When pronounced as //ə, ɐ// are surrounded by a plain and a posterior consonant, they are backed only in the CVC environment.^{[11] :22}

Stress

Stress in Adyghe is phonemic, in that it is unpredictable.^[10] The lexical stress tends to fall on one of two last syllables of the word stem. Longer words can also have multiple stress patterns, as in below: Orthography / Transliteration: / Stress 1:

/ Stress 2: / Stress 3: / Stress 4: / Stress 5: / Blue: Primary stress Green: Secondary stress

However, the functional load of stress is extremely low, but yet there are pairs that differ optionally.