Adyghe phonology

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. Phonemes in green are found in the Shapsug and Natukhai dialects, phonemes in blue are unique to the Abzakh dialect and phonemes in red are unique to the Hakuchi dialect.

		Labial		Alveolar			Post-alveolar		Alveolo- palatal	Retroflex	Velar			Uvular		Pharyngeal	Glottal
		plain	lab.	plain	lab.	lat.	plain	lab.			plain	lab.	pal.	plain	lab.		plain	lab.	pal.
Nasal		m		n
Plosive	voiceless	p		t							k1	kʷ	kʲ	q	qʷ		ʔ	ʔʷ	ʔʲ
	voiced	b		d							ɡ1	ɡʷ	ɡʲ
	ejective	pʼ	pʷʼ	tʼ	tʷʼ						kʼ	kʷʼ	kʲʼ	qʼ	qʷʼ
Affricate	voiceless			t͡s	t͡sʷ		t͡ʃ	t͡ʃʷ		t͡ʂ
	voiced			d͡z	d͡zʷ		d͡ʒ
	ejective			t͡sʼ			t͡ʃʼ			t͡ʂʼ
Fricative	voiceless	f		s		ɬ	ʃ	ʃʷ	ɕ	ʂ	x			χ	χʷ	ħ
	voiced	v1		z		ɮ	ʒ	ʒʷ	ʑ	ʐ	ɣ			ʁ	ʁʷ
	ejective			sʼ		ɬʼ	ʃʼ	ʃʷʼ
Approximant									j			w
Trill				r

1. Consonants that exist only in borrowed words.

Notes

• In the Black Sea coast dialects of Adyghe (e.g. Shapsug dialect and Natukhai dialect) there exist a palatalized voiced velar stop [ɡʲ], a palatalized voiceless velar stop [kʲ] and a palatalized velar ejective [kʲʼ] that were merged with [d͡ʒ], [t͡ʃ] and [t͡ʃʼ] in most Adyghe dialects. For example, the Shapsug words "гьанэ" [ɡʲaːna] "shirt", "кьэт" [kʲat] "chicken" and "кӏьапсэ" [kʲʼaːpsa] "rope" are pronounced in other dialects as "джанэ" [d͡ʒaːna], "чэт" [t͡ʃat] and кӏапсэ [t͡ʃʼaːpsa].
• The labialized retroflex consonants шъу [ʂʷ] and жъу [ʐʷ] in the literary Temirgoy dialect are alveolo-palatal щу [ɕʷ] and жьу [ʑʷ] in the Black Sea coast dialects of Adyghe (Shapsug dialect and Natukhai dialect).
• In the Black Sea coast dialects of Adyghe (e.g. Shapsug dialect and Natukhai dialect) there exist an alveolar ejective fricative [sʼ] that correspond to [t͡sʼ] in other Adyghe dialects. For example, the Shapsug words "сӏэ" [sʼa] "name" and "псӏы" [psʼə] "lie" are pronounced in other dialects as "цӏэ" [t͡sʼa] and пцӏы [pt͡sʼə].
• The phoneme written Л л is pronounced as a voiced alveolar lateral fricative [ɮ] mostly by the Circassians of Adygea, but many Circassians in diaspora pronounce it as an alveolar lateral approximant [l].
• In Adyghe, the palato-alveolar consonants ш [ʃ], шӏ [ʃʼ] and шӏу [ʃʷʼ] may be affricated to ч [t͡ʃ], чӏ [ʈ͡ʂʼ] and чӏу [ʈ͡ʂʷʼ] after the consonant с [s] or шъу [ʃʷ]. For example, the words:

сщагъ "I carried him to" → счагъ [sət͡ʃaːʁ]

сшӏагъ "I knew": → счӏагъ [sət͡ʂʼaːʁ]

сшӏэрэп "I don't know": → счӏэрэп [sət͡ʂʼarap]

сшӏошӏыгъ "I thought" → счӏошӏыгъ [sət͡ʂʷʼaʃʼəʁ]

шъушӏагъ "you (pl.) knew" → шъучӏагъ [ʃʷt͡ʂʼaːʁ].

• The first and second person prefixes с [s], т [t], п [p] and шъу [ʃʷ] may become voiced з [z], д [d], б [b] and жъу [ʒʷ] before the consonant гъ [ʁ]. For example:

сгъэкӏуагъ "I made him go" → згъэкӏуагъ [zʁakʷʼaːʁ]

тгъэкӏуагъ "we made him go" → дгъэкӏуагъ [dʁakʷʼaːʁ]

пгъэкӏуагъ "you made him go" → бгъэкӏуагъ [bʁakʷʼaːʁ]

шъугъэкӏуагъ "you (pl.) made him go" → жъугъэкӏуагъ [ʒʷʁakʷʼaːʁ].

• The phoneme [f] ⟨ф⟩ found in the Adyghe dialects correspond to [xʷ] ⟨ху⟩ in Kabardian. For example:

тфы [tfə] "five" ↔ тху [txʷə]

фыжьы [fəʑə] "white" ↔ хужь [xʷəʑ]

цӏыфы [t͡sʼəfə] "person" ↔ цӏыху [t͡sʼəxʷ].

• In many Adyghe dialects (e.g. Bzhedug, Shapsug, Natukhia and Abzakh) there exist [t͡ɕʷ] ⟨чъу⟩ that corresponds to standard Temirgoy [t͡sʷ] ⟨цу⟩. For example, the Temirgoy word цуакъэ [t͡sʷaːqa] is чъуакъэ [t͡ɕʷaːqa] 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 [[voiceless bidental fricative|fricative [h̪͆]]], which corresponds to the voiceless velar fricative [x] found in other varieties of Adyghe.
• The Hakuchi dialect of Adyghe contains uvular ejective [qʼ] and a labialized uvular ejective [qʷʼ], which corresponds to the [ʔ] and [ʔʷ] in other dialects.

Vowels

In contrast to its large consonant inventory, Adyghe has only three phonemic vowels in a classic vertical vowel system.

	Central
Close-mid	ɘ
Open-mid	a
Open	aː