North Caucasus (in parts of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia)
Region
North Caucasus (Circassia)
Ethnicity
Kabardians, Cherkesogai
Native speakers
1.9 million (2020)[1]
Language family
Northwest Caucasian
Circassian
Kabardian
Writing system
Cyrillic script Latin script Arabic script
Official status
Official language in
Russia
Kabardino-Balkaria
Karachay-Cherkessia
Recognised minority language in
Israel Jordan Syria Libya
Language codes
ISO 639-2
kbd
ISO 639-3
kbd
Glottolog
kaba1278
Kabardian is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger[2]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
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Religion
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West Circassian (Adyghe)
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History
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Ancient
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Contemporary
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Circassian Day of Mourning
v
t
e
Yinal speaking Kabardian.
Kabardian (/kəˈbɑːrdiən/)[3][a] also known as East Circassian, is a Northwest Caucasian language closely related to the Adyghe (West Circassian) language. Circassian nationalists reject the distinction between the two languages and refer to them both as "Circassian".[4]
It is spoken mainly in parts of the North Caucasus republics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia (Eastern Circassia), and in Turkey, Jordan and Syria (the extensive post-war diaspora). It has 47 or 48 consonant phonemes, of which 22 or 23 are fricatives, depending upon whether one counts [h] as phonemic, but it has only 3 phonemic vowels. It is one of very few languages to possess a clear phonemic distinction between ejective affricates and ejective fricatives.
The Kabardian language has two major dialects: Kabardian and Besleney. Some linguists argue that Kabardian is only one dialect of an overarching Adyghe or Circassian language, which consists of all of the dialects of Adyghe and Kabardian together, and the Kabardians themselves most often refer to their language using the Kabardian term Adighabze ("Adyghe language"). Several linguists, including Georges Dumézil, have used the terms "eastern Circassian" (Kabardian) and "western Circassian" (Adyghe) to avoid that confusion, but both "Circassian" and "Kabardian" may still be found in linguistic literature. There are several key phonetic and lexical differences that create a reasonably well-defined separation between the eastern and the western Circassian dialects, but the degree to which the two are mutually intelligible has not yet been determined. The matter is also complicated somewhat by the existence of Besleney, which is usually considered a dialect of Kabardian but also shares many features with certain[which?] dialects of Adyghe.
Kabardian is written in a form of Cyrillic and serves as the literary language for Circassians in both Kabardino-Balkaria (where it is usually called the "Kabardian language") and Karachay-Cherkessia (where it is called the "Cherkess language").
Like all other Northwest Caucasian languages, Kabardian is ergative and has an extremely complex verbal system.
Since 2004, the Turkish broadcasting corporation TRT has maintained a half-an-hour programme a week in the Terek dialect of Kabardian.
^Kabardian at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
^"UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger". www.unesco.org. Archived from the original on August 2, 2018. Retrieved Mar 3, 2021.
^Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook, Edinburgh
^"Kabardian | people | Britannica".
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
and 26 Related for: Kabardian language information
Kabardian (/kəˈbɑːrdiən/) also known as East Circassian, is a Northwest Caucasian language closely related to the Adyghe (West Circassian) language. Circassian...
up Kabardian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Kabardian may refer to: Kabardians, a Circassian tribe of the Northwest Caucasus Kabardianlanguage, the...
with half a million speakers, and Kabardian (къэбэрдейбзэ; also known as East Circassian), with a million. The languages are highly mutually intelligible...
is closely related to the Kabardian (East Circassian) language, though some reject the distinction between the two languages in favor of both being dialects...
The Kabardians (Kabardian: Къэбэрдей адыгэхэр; Adyghe: Къэбэртай адыгэхэр; Russian: Кабардинцы) or Kabardinians are one of the twelve major Circassian...
grammar (Kabardian: Къэбэрдеибзэ адыгабзэ), as described in this article, is the grammar of standard East Circassian also known as Kabardian, as spoken...
writing of the Abaza and the Kabardianlanguages in the 1920s and was proposed for the writing of the Sotho-Tswana language in 1929. A. N. Tucker used h...
used in the writing of the Abaza, the Abkhaz, the Adyghe and the Kabardianlanguages in the 1920s and 1930s. It is not to be confused with the turned...
family, with a total of about 2.5 million speakers. Includes the Kabardianlanguage, with one million speakers. The Northeast and Northwest Caucasian...
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the Abkhaz language from 1928 to 1938, in the Abaza language, in the Kabardianlanguage, in the Shiddin language and in the Udi language. Reversed ge...
represents a glottal stop /ʔ/ (like the tt in GA button). Example from Kabardian Adyghe dialect: елъэӏуащ [jaɬaˈʔʷaːɕ], "he asked her for something" In...
or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely...
in diaspora in over 50 countries. The two Circassian languages—western Adyghe and eastern Kabardian—are natively spoken by the Circassian people. Khabzeism...
In Kabardian, like all Northwest Caucasian languages, the verb is the most inflected part of speech. Verbs are typically head final and are conjugated...
Kislovodsk (Russian: Кислово́дск; Kabardian: Нартсанэ; Karachay-Balkar: Ачысуу) is a spa city in Stavropol Krai, in the North Caucasus region of Russia...
Checheno-Ingush ASSR on 7 March 1944, and renamed the Kabardino-Balkar ASSR the Kabardian ASSR on 8 April 1944. After Stalin's death on 5 March 1953 the new government...
from the Cyrillic letter Ka and k. Қ (ka with descender) Ќ (kje) Kabardianlanguage Cyrillic script Radloff 1893–1911. Radloff, W. (1893–1911). Опыт словаря...
Circassians Kabardians Abkhaz Chechens Nogai Steppe Nomads Georgians Grand Principality of Great Kabarda or East Circassia was a historical country in...
postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term voiceless postalveolar...
Turkish: damga; Mongolian: tamga; Adyghe: тамыгъэ, romanized: tamığə; Kabardian: дамыгъэ, romanized: damığə) was an abstract seal or stamp used by Eurasian...
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Abkhaz–Abaza dialects. Kabardian has just over one million speakers: 550,000 in Turkey and 450,000 in Russia, where it is an official language of the republics...
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