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Current theory holds that the richness of consonantal phoneme systems in the Northwest Caucasian languages is the result of a process called syllable-periphery assignment. The basis behind this theory is that, during language evolution, vowel features such as labialisation, pharyngealisation or frontness are removed from the vowels in a root and reassigned instead to the consonants which surround them. This theory also explains why there are so few vowels in Northwest Caucasian languages.
There are five languages in the Northwest Caucasian family: Abkhaz, Abaza, Kabard-Cherkess , Adyghe or West Circassian, and Ubykh. The languages in the Northwest Caucasian family are related as follows:
The Adyghe language, also called Circassian, is one of the more widely spoken North-West Caucasian languages. It can be found everywhere from Russia to Turkey. There is even a small community in the United States. Four main dialects are recognised: Kemirgoy , Abdzakh , Bzhedugh and Shapsugh , as well as many minor ones (for instance, the Turkish dialect Hakuchi spoken by the last speakers of Ubykh). Adyghe has three phonemic vowels, and is less consonantally complex than the Abkhaz-Abaza group.
The Kabard-Cherkess language , is split into two dialects, Kabardian and Cherkess (Circassian). Furthermore, Kabardian has several dialects, Terek, the literary standard, and Besney, which occupies a position intermediate between Terek Kabardian and the Agyghe. It has the least number of consonants of any North-Western Caucasian language, with 48. Kabardian is characterised by ejective fricatives and a small number of vowels in speech.
The Abkhaz language has appr. 100 000 speakers in Abkhazia, with possibly up to 50 000 speakers in Turkey. It has been a literary language from the beginning of the 20th century19th century 20th century 21st century more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901- 2000 in the sense of the Gre. Abkhaz is often claimed to be simply a divergent dialect of a larger language, Abkhaz-Abaza. It makes better linguistic sense, however, to separate Abkhaz and Abaza into two separate languages, since Abaza preserves phonemes which Abkhaz lacks, and vice-versa. Abkhaz is generally viewed as having three major dialectA dialect is a variant, or variety, of a language spoken in a certain geographical area. The number of speakers, and the area itself, can be of arbitrary size. It follows that a dialect for a larger area can contain plenty of (sub-) dialects, which in turs, Abzhuy , Bzyp (both spoken in Georgia) and Sadz (spoken in Turkey). Abkhaz is characterised by unusual consonant clusters and a small vowel inventory. It has only two distinctive vowels: an open vowel /a/ and a closed vowel /i, ǝ/. Depending on the environment both of the vowels can be realized as [e,i,o,u]. See also Abkhaz alphabet.
