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.
In the
Black Sea coast dialects of Adyghe (e.g.
Shapsug and
Natukhai) 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.[1][2][3][4] For example, the Shapsug words "гьанэ" [ɡʲaːnɐ] "shirt", "кьэт" [kʲɐt] "chicken" and "кӏьапсэ" [kʲʼaːpsɐ] "rope" are pronounced in other dialects as "джанэ" [d͡ʒaːnɐ], "чэт" [t͡ʃɐt] and "кӏапсэ" [t͡ʃʼaːpsɐ].
The labialized
retroflex consonants шъу[ʂʷ] and жъу[ʐʷ] in the literary Temirgoy dialect are
alveolo-palatalщу[ɕʷ] and жьу[ʑʷ] in the Black Sea coast dialects of Adyghe (Shapsug and Natukhai).
In the Black Sea coast dialects of Adyghe (e.g. Shapsug and Natukhai) there exist an
alveolar ejective fricative[
sʼ] that correspond to [
t͡sʼ] in other Adyghe dialects.[5] For example, the Shapsug words "сӏэ" [sʼa] "name" and "псӏы" [psʼə] "lie" are pronounced in other dialects as "цӏэ" [t͡sʼɐ] and "пцӏы" [pt͡sʼə].
In Adyghe, the
palato-alveolar consonantsш[
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 [sət͡ʂʼɐrɐp]
сшӏошӏыгъ "I thought" → счӏошӏыгъ [sət͡ʂʷʼɐʃʼəʁ]
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 [zʁɐkʷʼaːʁ]
тгъэкӏуагъ "we made him go" → дгъэкӏуагъ [dʁɐkʷʼaːʁ]
пгъэкӏуагъ "you made him go" → бгъэкӏуагъ [bʁɐkʷʼaːʁ]
шъугъэкӏуагъ "you (pl.) made him go" → жъугъэкӏуагъ [ʒʷʁɐkʷʼaːʁ].
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 [t͡sʷaːqɐ] is чъуакъэ [t͡ɕʷaːqɐ] 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
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. /ə/ and /ɐ/ have varying allophones, whereas /aː/ has a more limited set. Realization of vocalic allophones is based on the surrounding consonants.[6][7][8]
Lax vowels /ə,ɐ/ are usually rounded to [ɵ,ɞ] between labialized consonants within the same syllable; fronted to [ɪ,ɛ] in the environment of
coronal and palatalized consonants; and retracted to [ɤ,ʌ] in the environment of uvular, pharyngeal and glottal consonants.[7]:16
When /ə,ɐ/ are surrounded by a plain and a posterior consonant, they are backed only in the CVC environment.[7]:22
Stress
Stress in Adyghe is
phonemic, in that it is unpredictable.[6] The lexical stress tends to fall on one of two last syllables of the word stem. Longer words can also have multiple stress patterns, as in below:
^Applebaum, Ayla; Gordon, Matthew (2013). A comparative phonetic study of the Circassian languages. Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on Languages of the Caucasus: University of California, Berkeley Linguistics. pp. 3–17.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (
link)