Ubykh phonology

Ubykh, a North-West Caucasian language, has the largest consonant inventory of all documented languages which do not use clicks, and also has the most disproportional ratio of phonemic consonants to vowels. It also possesses consonants at at least eight, perhaps nine, basic places of articulation. Ubykh has 27 distinct fricative phonemes, 27 sibilants, and 20 uvular consonants, more than any other documented language. Some Khoisan languages, such as Unicode|ǃXóõ, may have larger consonant inventories due to their extensive use of click consonants, although some analyses (see for instance Traill (1985)) view a large proportion of the clicks in these languages as clusters, which would reduce the number of phonemes in those languages.

Consonants

Below is an International Phonetic Alphabet representation of the Ubykh consonant inventory.

Notes

# Note the large number of basic series. Ubykh has basic consonants at nine places of articulation; some scholars group the palatal approximant IPA|/j/ with the palatalised velar series, which has been done here for concerns of space.
# The glottal stop IPA| [ʔ] is also noted, but only as an allophone of IPA|/qʼ/.
# Of the three secondary articulations:
#* Palatalization, abbreviated "pal.", is indicated with <IPA|ʲ>.
#* Labialization, abbreviated "lab.", is indicated with <IPA|ʷ>.
#* Pharyngealization, abbreviated "phar.", is indicated with <IPA|ˁ>.
# Ejectives are indicated with an apostrophe (<IPA|ʼ>).
# The series labeled postalveolar, alveolo-palatal, and retroflex are all postalveolar. (See postalveolar consonant for details.) The rightmost column is apical postalveolar; the middle is laminal postalveolar; and the leftmost has been described as laminal closed postalveolar and is transcribed IPA|/ŝ/ etc. by Catford.
# The velar stops IPA|/k/ /ɡ/ /kʼ/ and the labiodental fricative IPA|/v/ are only found in Turkish and Circassian loanwords.
# Out of the labials, the fricatives IPA|/v/ /vˁ/ /f/ are labiodental, the others bilabial.

All but four of the 84 consonants are found in native vocabulary. The plain velars IPA|/k/ /ɡ/ /kʼ/ and the voiced labiodental fricative IPA|/v/ are found mainly in loans and onomatopoeia: IPA|/ɡaarɡa/ ('crow') from Turkish "karga"), IPA|/kawar/ ('slat, batten') possibly from Abdzakh Adyghe), IPA|/makʼəf/ ('estate, legacy') from Turkish "vakıf"), IPA|/vər/ ('the sound of glass breaking'). As well, the pharyngealised labial consonants IPA|/pˁ/ /pˁʼ/ are almost exclusively noted in words where they are associated with another pharyngealised consonant (for instance, IPA|/qˁʼaapˁʼa/ 'handful'), but are occasionally found outside this context (for example, the verb root IPA|/tʼaapˁʼ/ 'to explode, to burst'). Finally, IPA|/h/ is mainly found in interjections and loans, with IPA|/hənda/ ('now') the only real native word to contain the phoneme. The frequency of consonants in Ubykh is quite variable; the phoneme IPA|/n/ alone accounts for over 12% of all consonants encountered in connected text, due to the presence of the phoneme in the ergative and oblique singular and plural case suffixes, the third person singular and plural ergative verbal agreement prefix, the adverbial derivative suffix, the present and imperfect tense suffixes, and in suffixes denoting several non-finite verb forms.

Very few allophones of consonants are noted, mainly because a small acoustic difference can be phonemic when so many consonants are involved. However, the alveolopalatal labialised fricatives were sometimes realised as alveolar labialised fricatives, and the uvular ejective stop IPA|/qʼ/ in the past tense suffix -IPA|/qʼa/ was often pronounced as a glottal stop, due to the influence of the Kabardian and Adyghe languages.

The consonant IPA|/pˁ/ has not been attested word-initially, and IPA|/pˁʼ/ is found initially only in the personal name IPA|/pˁʼapˁʼəʒʷ/, but every other consonant can begin a word. Restrictions on word-final consonants have not yet been investigated; however, Ubykh has a slight preference for open syllables (CV) over closed ones (VC or CVC). The pharyngealised consonants IPA|/mˁ/ and IPA|/wˁ/ have not been noted word-finally, but this is probably a statistical anomaly due to the rarity of these consonants, each being attested only in a handful of words.

The alveolar trill IPA|/r/ is not common in native Ubykh vocabulary, appearing mostly in loan words. However, the phoneme carries a phonaesthetic concept of rolling or a repeated action in a few verbs, notably IPA|/bəqˁʼəda/ ~ IPA|/bəqˁʼərda/ ('to roll around') and IPA|/χʷˁəχʷˁəda/ ~ IPA|/χʷˁəχʷˁərda/ ('to slither').

The Karacalar "Dialect"

A divergent form of Ubykh spoken by Osman Güngor, an inhabitant of Karacalar, was investigated by Georges Dumézil in the 1960s (Dumézil 1965:266-269). His speech differed phonologically from "standard" Ubykh in a number of ways:

* the labialised alveolar stops IPA|/dʷ/ /tʷ/ /tʷʼ/ have merged into the corresponding bilabial stops IPA|/b/ /p/ /pʼ/.
* The labialised alveolopalatal fricatives IPA|/ɕʷ/ /ʑʷ/ have merged with their palatoalveolar counterparts IPA|/ʃʷ/ /ʒʷ/.
* seems to have disappeared.
* Pharyngealisation is no longer distinctive, surviving only on the lexemes IPA|/abˁa/ ('to be ill') and IPA|/qʷˁə/ ('to bark'), and being replaced in many instances by gemination (standard IPA|/wˁa/ ('dog') → Karacalar IPA|/wːa/), and in at least one instance by ejectivisation (standard IPA|/ʦaqˁapˁə/ ('roasted maize') → Karacalar IPA|/ʦaqʼapʼə/).
* Palatalisation of the uvular consonants is no longer phonemic, also being replaced in many instances by gemination (standard IPA|/qʲa/ ('to cough') → Karacalar IPA|/qːa/).
* The voiced retroflex affricate IPA|/ɖʐ/ has, at least in some cases, merged with IPA|/ʤ/.

Vowels

Ubykh has very few basic phonemic vowels. Hans Vogt's (1963) analysis retains IPA|/oː/ as a separate vowel, but most other linguists (Dumézil 1965) do not accept this analysis, preferring one with simpler vertical distinction: IPA|/ə/ and IPA|/a/. Other vowels, notably IPA|/u/, appear in some loanwords. The question of whether an additional vowel IPA|/aa/ should be retained is of some debate, since it differs from IPA|/a/ not in length but in quality. However, phonologically and diachronically, it is often derived from two instances of IPA|/a/.

Even with so few vowels, there are many vowel allophones, affected by the secondary articulation of the consonants that surround them. Eleven basic phonetic vowels appear, mostly derived from the two phonemic vowels adjacent to labialised or palatalised consonants. The phonetic vowels are IPA| [a e i o u ə] and IPA| [aː eː iː oː uː] . In general, the following rules apply (Vogt 1963):

:IPA|/Cʷa/ > [Co] and /aw/ > [oː] :IPA|/Cʲa/ > [Ce] and /aj/ > [eː] :IPA|/Cʷə/ > [Cu] and /əw/ > [uː] :IPA|/Cʲə/ > [Ci] and /əj/ > [iː]

Other, more complex vowels have been noted as allophones: IPA|/ajəwʃqʼa/ ('you did it') can become IPA| [ayʃqʼa] , for instance. On occasion, nasal sonorants (particularly IPA|/n/) may even decay into vowel nasality. For instance, IPA|/najnʃʷ/ ('young man') has been noted as IPA| [nɛ̃jʃʷ] as well as IPA| [najnʃʷ] .

The vowel IPA|/a/ appears initially very frequently, particularly in the function of the definite article. IPA|/ə/ is extremely restricted initially, appearing only in ditransitive verb forms where all three arguments are third person, e.g. IPA|/əntʷən/ ('he gave it to him') (normally IPA|/jəntʷən/). Even then, IPA|/ə/ itself may be dropped to provide an even shorter form IPA|/ntʷən/.

Both vowels appear without restriction finally, although when IPA|/ə/ is unstressed finally, it tends to be dropped: IPA|/tʷə/ ('father') becomes the definite form IPA|/atʷ/ ('the father'). In fact, the alternation between IPA|/ə/ and zero is often not phonemic, and may be dropped root-internally as well: IPA|/maqʷəta/ ~ IPA|/maqʷta/ ('hoe').

References

* Dumézil, G. 1965 Documents anatoliens sur les langues et les traditions du Caucase, III: Nouvelles études oubykhs. Librairie A. Maisonneuve: Paris.
* Traill, A. 1985 Phonetic and phonological studies of !Xóõ Bushman. Helmut Buske Verlag: Hamburg.
* Vogt, H. 1963 Dictionnaire de la langue oubykh. Universitetsforlaget: Oslo.
* [http://crdo.vjf.cnrs.fr:8080/exist/crdo/ CRDO archive where several Ubykh stories recorded by Dumezil with French and English translation can be found]