The Abaza language(Абаза Бызшва/Abaza Byzšwa) is a language of the Caucasus mountains in the Russian autonomous republic of Turkey, where the Roman alphabet is used.
Abaza, like its relatives in the family of Northwest Caucasian languages, is highly agglutinative and has a large consonantal inventory (63 phonemes) coupled with a minimal vowel inventory (two vowels). It is very closely related to Abkhaz, but it preserves a few phonemes which Abkhaz lacks, such as a pharyngeal voiced fricative. Work on Abaza has been carried out by W. S. Allen, Brian O'Herin, and John Colarusso.
External links
Ethnologue report for Abaza (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ABQ)
The Abazalanguage (Абаза Бызшва/Abaza Byzšwa) is a language of the Caucasus mountains in the Russian autonomous republic of Karachay-Cherkessia by the Abazins.
Abaza is spoken by approximately 35,000 people in Russia, where it is written using a modified Cyrillic alphabet, as well as another 10,000 in Turkey, where the Roman alphabet is used.
Abaza, like its relatives in the family of Northwest Caucasian languages, is highly agglutinative and has a large consonantal inventory (63 phonemes) coupled with a minimal vowel inventory (two vowels).
Northwest Caucasian languages have been suggested as being related to the Northeast Caucasian languages and both are often merged under the blanket term "North Caucasian languages"; several linguists, notably Sergei Starostin, posit a phylogenetic link between these two families.
Abkhaz is spoken primarily in Abkhazia, where it is established as the official language by the self-proclaimed Republic of Abkhazia.
The earliest extant written records of the Abkhazian language are in the Arabic alphabet, recorded by the Turkish traveller Evliya Celebi in the 17th century.
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