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Abkhaz
Аҧсуа
Spoken in: Abkhazia/Georgia, Turkey 
Region: Caucasia
Total speakers: 200,000+
Language family: North Caucasian
 Northwest Caucasian
  Abkhaz-Abazin
   Abkhaz 
Official status
Official language in: Abkhazia
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: ab
ISO 639-2: abk
ISO 639-3: abk
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Abkhazia (Аҧсны Apsny აფხაზეთი Apkhazeti or Abkhazeti Абха́зия Abhazia) is a De facto Georgia ( საქართველო, Sakartvelo) is a Transcontinental country in the Caucasus region situated at the dividing line between Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family North Caucasian languages (sometimes called simply Caucasic as opposed to Kartvelian, and to avoid confusion with the concept of " Caucasian race " The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Pontic, Circassian, or Abkhaz-Adyghe, are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region Abkhazia (Аҧсны Apsny აფხაზეთი Apkhazeti or Abkhazeti Абха́зия Abhazia) is a De facto This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Abkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken mainly in Abkhazia[1] and Turkey. The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Pontic, Circassian, or Abkhaz-Adyghe, are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region Abkhazia (Аҧсны Apsny აფხაზეთი Apkhazeti or Abkhazeti Абха́зия Abhazia) is a De facto Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches It is the official language of the Republic of Abkhazia, where around 100,000 people speak it, and the second official language of Georgia within the territory of Abkhazia. Georgia ( საქართველო, Sakartvelo) is a Transcontinental country in the Caucasus region situated at the dividing line between Abkhazia (Аҧсны Apsny აფხაზეთი Apkhazeti or Abkhazeti Абха́зия Abhazia) is a De facto Furthermore, it is spoken by several tens to hundreds of thousands of members of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara, Syria, Jordan and several Western countries. Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches Syria ( سوريّة or) officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic ar الجمهورية العربية السورية Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (الأردنّ al-Urdunn) is an Arab country in Southwest Asia spanning the southern

Contents

Classification

Abkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language, indicating it originated in the northwest Caucasus. The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Pontic, Circassian, or Abkhaz-Adyghe, are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region The Caucasus ( also referred to as North Caucasus) is a geopolitical region located between Europe Asia & Middle East 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. The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Caspian, Nakho-Dagestanian, or Dagestanian, are a family of Languages North Caucasian languages (sometimes called simply Caucasic as opposed to Kartvelian, and to avoid confusion with the concept of " Caucasian race " Dr Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin ( Cyrillic: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин March 24, 1953 – September 30, 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. The Dené-Caucasian (also called Sino-Caucasian or Dené-Sino-Caucasian) Language family is a proposed language superfamily containing at In Linguistics, a macrofamily is a proposed Language family that unites two or more language families that are already recognized 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. The South Caucasian languages (also known as Ibero-Caucasian or Kartvelian) are spoken primarily in Georgia, with smaller groups of speakers in Turkey The term Ibero-Caucasian (or Iberian-Caucasian) was proposed by Georgian linguist Arnold Chikobava for the union of the three language families that are

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. The Abaza language (Абаза Бызшва Abaza Byzšwa) is a language of the Caucasus mountains in the Russian Karachay-Cherkess Republic A dialect continuum is a range of Dialects spoken across a large geographical area differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close and gradually decreasing 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. Ubykh or Ubyx is a Language of the Northwestern Caucasian group, spoken by the Ubykh people up until the early 1990s

Geographical distribution

Abkhaz is spoken primarily in Abkhazia. Abkhazia (Аҧсны Apsny აფხაზეთი Apkhazeti or Abkhazeti Абха́зия Abhazia) is a De facto Abkhaz is also spoken by members of the large Abkhaz Muhajir diaspora, which is mainly located in Turkey with smaller groups living in Syria, Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara and Jordan, and through more recent remigration in Western countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. Several Indigenous peoples of the northwest of the Caucasus were forced into Exodus at the end of the Caucasian War by victorious Russia Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches Syria ( سوريّة or) officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic ar الجمهورية العربية السورية Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (الأردنّ al-Urdunn) is an Arab country in Southwest Asia spanning the southern Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands The United States of America —commonly referred to as the However, the exact number of Abkhaz-speakers in these country remains unknown due to a lack of official records.

Dialects

Abkhaz is generally viewed as having three major dialects:

The literary Abkhaz language is based on the Abzhywa dialect.

Phonemes

See Abkhaz phonology for an overview of the phonemic inventory of Abkhaz. Abkhaz is a language of the Northwest Caucasian family which like the other Northwest Caucasian languages is very rich in consonants

Typology

Abkhaz is typologically classified as an agglutinative language. In Linguistics, agglutination is the morphological process ofadding Affixes to the base of a Word. Like all other Northwest Caucasian languages, Abkhaz has an extremely complex (polysynthetic) verbal system coupled with a very simple noun system; Abkhaz distinguishes just two cases, the nominative and the adverbial. Polysynthetic languages are highly Synthetic languages ie languages in which words are composed of many Morphemes Definition The degree of The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other The Adverbial case is a Noun case in the Abkhaz language and Georgian language that has a function similar to the translative and

Writing system

Main article: Abkhaz alphabet

Abkhaz has had its own adaptation of the Cyrillic alphabet since 1862. The Abkhaz alphabet is an Alphabet for the Abkhaz language which consists of 62 letters The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by Year 1862 was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting on Monday The first alphabet was a 37-character Cyrillic alphabet invented by Baron Peter von Uslar. The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by Baron Peter von Uslar (Петр Карлович Услар ( &ndash( was a Russian General, Engineer and linguist of German descent In 1909 a 55 letter Cyrillic alphabet was used. Year 1909 ( MCMIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting A 75-letter Latin script devised by a Russian/Georgian linguist Nikolai Marr lasted from 1926 to 1928, when another Latin script was used. Nicholas Marr (Николай Яковлевич Марр Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr; ნიკოლოზ იაკობის ძე მარი Nikolos Iakobis dse Year 1926 ( MCMXXVI) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1928 ( MCMXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. 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. The Georgian alphabet (ქართული დამწერლობა is the writing system currently used to write the Georgian language and other South Caucasian Year 1938 ( MCMXXXVIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1954 ( MCMLIV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar) Dmitry Gulia (ҧҧа Гәлиа is a famous Abkhazian writer He is considered to be the father of Abkhaz literature and made an enormous contribution to its development

History

The earliest extant written records of the Abkhaz language are in the Arabic alphabet, recorded by the Turkish traveller Evliya Celebi in the 17th century. The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. Evliya Çelebi (اوليا چلبي the son of the imperial goldsmith Derviş Mehmed Zılli ( March 25 (? 1611 &ndash 1682 was the most famous Ottoman As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 17th Century was that Century which lasted from 1601 - 1700 in the Gregorian calendar Abkhaz has only been used as a literary language for about 100 years. During Stalin's reign Abkhaz was banned as a literary language. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party

Status

Both Georgian and de facto Abkhaz law enshrines an official status of the Abkhaz language in Abkhazia.

The 1992 law of Georgia, reiterated in the 1995 Constitution, grants Abkhaz the status of second official language on the territory of Abkhazia, along with Georgian. Georgian (ka ქართული ენა kartuli ena) is the Official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.

In November 2007, the de facto authorities of Abkhazia adopted a new law "on the state language of the Republic of Abkhazia" which enforces Abkhaz as the language of official communication. According to the law, all meetings held by the president, parliament or government must be conducted in Abkhaz (instead of Russian which is currently a de facto administrative language) from 2010 and all state officials will be obliged to use Abkhaz as their language of every-day business from 2015. Some, however, have considered the implementation of this law unrealistic and concerns have been made that it will drive people away from Abkhazia and hurt the independent press due to a significant share of non-Abkhaz speakers among ethnic minorities as well as Abkhaz themselves, and a shortage of teachers of Abkhaz. [2]

Sample text

Дарбанзаалак ауаюы дшоуп ихы дақъиҭны. Ауаа зегь зинлеи патулеи еийароуп. Урҭ ирымоуп ахшыюи аламыси, дара дарагь аешьеи реиҩш еизыйазароуп. [3]

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

Notes

  1. ^ Abkhazia is de facto an independent republic but de jure an autonomous republic of Georgia. An autonomous republic is a type of Administrative division similar to a Province. Georgia ( საქართველო, Sakartvelo) is a Transcontinental country in the Caucasus region situated at the dividing line between
  2. ^ Anahid Gogorian (December 20, 2007), Abkhaz Worried by Language Law. Institute for War and Peace Reporting Caucasus Reporting Service No. Events 69 - Vespasian, formerly a general under Nero, enters Rome to claim the title of Emperor. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Institute for War & Peace Reporting (or IWPR for short is an international media development charity established in 1991 424.
  3. ^ Omniglot. com, Abkhaz language

External links

Example of Abkhaz language: [1]


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