Adyghe Language - Phonology

Phonology

Adyghe exhibits a large number of consonants: between fifty and sixty consonants in the various Adyghe dialects. All dialects possess a contrast between plain and labialized glottal stops. A very unusual minimal contrast, and possibly unique to the Abdzakh 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). The Black Sea dialect of Adyghe contains a highly unusual sound: a bidental fricative which corresponds to the voiceless velar fricative found in other varieties of Adyghe. Many Adyghe speakers (like most speakers of Kabardian) pronounce some of the ejective consonants as pharyngealized ejective consonants (, ) or as pharyngealized consonants (, ).

1. In the Shapsug dialect (Adyghe: Шапсыгъэбзэ) (e.g. the Kfar Kama dialect), there exist an alveolar ejective fricative and a labialized voiceless palato-alveolar affricate which correspond to and in other dialects (Like Abzakh dialect and Bzhadug dialect). In the shapsug dialect there is a palatalized voiced velar plosive and a palatalized voiceless velar plosive which in other Adyghe dialects those consonants were merged with and .
2. In most Adyghe dialects (e.g. Bzhedug, Shapsug and Abadzekh) the consonant corresponds to in Kabardian.
3. Consonants that exist only in borrowed words.

Despite the wealth of consonants, Adyghe has only three phonemic vowels in a classic vertical vowel system.