| What about languages? They baffle you? They embarrass you? They frustrate you? Worry not!, for they do it to us all. :-) |
- Introduction
Have you ever heard of Abkhazian? If you haven't, don't worry - you are not alone. Called "Abkhaz" by most Encyclopædias, this language is widely spoken in Abkhazia, a breakaway republic unrecognized by foreign governments. Also spoken in Turkey and in Ukraine, Abkhaz belongs to the North Caucasian branch in the Family Tree of Languages. Those who make use of it are the Abazins, Adyghey, Kabardians and the Circassians.
Abkhazian has minor connections with the remaining two North Caucasian families (North Central Caucasian and North East Caucasian, or Daghestanian), and simply no relation with Kartvelian (which is South Caucasian). The aforementioned Abazins, besides Abkhazian, also speak Abaza, which is usually seen by Linguists as a divergent dialect of Abkhaz - although both languages were awarded literary status in the early days of Soviet power in the Caucasus. The "official" - let's put it this way - and main dialects of Abkhaz are (northern) Bzâp and the literary (southern) Abz'âwa. Both are spoken in Abkhazia, which since 1931 has had the status of an autonomous republic within (the former Soviet) Georgia. The designation "Abkhaz" derives from the Georgian ethnonym, though that in turn ultimately comes from Greek.
What's So Special About It Anyway?
Well, Abkhazian is said to be quite difficult to learn. But then again, aren't all languages? Even those which belong to the same family can reveal intricate characteristics, which pertain to them only. I believe all languages are hard to master, since each one of them have their own principles, and until you can have a native-like understanding of their lexics (not only syntactically, but especially semantically) and of their cultural aspects... it takes time - in fact, it can easily take your entire life.
But anyways, Abkhazian makes use of a modified Russian Cyrillic Alphabet. So far, nothing impressive, since Serbian and Ukrainian, for example, also make use of a modified Cyrillic Alphabet. The one pertaining to Abkhazian, though, is said not to be able to fully represent its sounds, which include a wavering trill, whistling noises, and a prolonged buzz (!)...
The language has a vertical vowel-system (namely a two-term open versus close), which can be easily mastered for speakers of Germanic languages, due to the immanence of their incredibly rich vowel system - especially Swedish and Norwegian. The Abkhazian orthography, though, indicates vowel-phones in addition to the two mentioned phonemes.
It is the specially large consonantal inventory that can baffle the learner. The Abkhazian's consonantal cache is made up of the standard Caucasian opposition between voiced vs voiceless aspirate vs voiceless ejective obstruents, with widespread use of the secondary articulatory features of palatalisation and labialisation. One of the main dialects, for example, Abz'âwa, has 58 consonantal phonemes. The other one, Bzâp, reaches the oustanding mark of 67 consonantal phonemes.
The noun-morphology is simple, though, and Abkhaz only possesses one formally marked case, namely the Adverbial. The verb forms are polysynthetic, having the ability to recapitulate almost the entire syntax of the clause - they have a complex system of pronominal cross-referencing affixes that shew agreement with subject and direct, indirect and oblique objects. Also, its verb forms incorporate markers for the normal verbal categories of tense, aspect, mood and causation. Let us take the following sentence to illustrate what has been said:
