Ubykh was a Northwest Caucasian language once spoken by the Ubykh people, an ethnic group of Circassians who originally inhabited the eastern coast of the Black Sea before being killed or deported en masse by Russia to the Ottoman Empire during the Circassian genocide.
Ubykh is ergative and polysynthetic, with a high degree of agglutination, with polypersonal verbal agreement and a very large number of distinct consonants but only two phonemically distinct vowels. With around eighty consonants, it has one of the largest inventories of consonants in the world, and the largest number for any language without clicks.
The name Ubykh is derived from (), from , its name in the Adyghe language. It is known in linguistic literature by many names: variants of Ubykh, such as Ubikh, (French); and its Germanised variant (from Ubykh ).
Major features Ubykh is distinguished by the following features, some of which are shared with other Northwest Caucasian languages:
It is ergative, making no syntactic distinction between the subject of an intransitive sentence and the direct object of a transitive sentence. Split ergativity plays only a small part, if at all. It is highly agglutinating and polysynthetic, using mainly monosyllabic or bisyllabic roots, but with single morphological words sometimes reaching nine or more syllables in length: ('if only you had not been able to make him take [it] all out from under me again for them'). Affixes rarely fuse in any way. It has a simple nominal system, contrasting just three noun cases, and not always marking grammatical number in the direct case. Its system of verbal agreement is quite complex. English verbs must agree only with the subject; Ubykh verbs must agree with the subject, the direct object and the indirect object, and benefactive objects must also be marked in the verb. It is phonologically complex as well, with 84 distinct consonants (four of which, however, appear only in loan words). It has three phonemic vowels [ ] which correspond to Dumézil's [aa a ə] respectively and this is evident in the minimal triplet of ('I milk X'), ('I reap X'), and ('I milk them; I reap them').
Phonology
Ubykh has 84 phonemic consonants, a record high amongst languages without click consonants, but only 3 phonemic vowels. Four of these consonants are found only in loanwords and onomatopoeiae. There are nine basic places of articulation for the consonants and extensive use of secondary articulation, such that Ubykh has 20 different uvular phonemes. Ubykh distinguishes three types of postalveolar consonants: apical, laminal, and laminal closed. Regarding the vowels, since there are only three phonemic vowels, there is a great deal of allophony.
Orthography Writing systems for the Ubykh language have been proposed, but there has never been a standard written form. However, Fenwick gives a guide for their "practical Ubykh orthography", intended to be typeable on a Turkish computer keyboard, which is shown below: +Practical Ubykh OrthographyIPAOrthographyIPAOrthographyIPAOrthographyIPAOrthographyazç'q'esjğırşxbnjuqiplşuq'ip'lhcrğivl'hçrxifduç'rquwtuyq'umt'ugğubhcikxuphçik'qhp'hç'iĝq'hvhjix̂ğhwhşigixhmhcükiqödçük'iq'ötç'üguğöt'jükuxödzşük'uhtscx̂ujrts'çqşr
Grammar
Morphosyntax Ubykh is agglutinative and polysynthetic: ('we will not be able to go back'), ('if you had said it'). It is often extremely concise in its word forms.
The boundaries between nouns and verbs is somewhat blurred. Any noun can be used as the root of a stative verb ( 'child', 'I was a child'), and many verb roots can become nouns simply by the use of noun affixes ( 'to say', 'what I say').Dumézil, G. 1975 Le verbe oubykh: études descriptives et comparatives (The Ubykh Verb: Descriptive and Comparative Studies). Paris: Imprimerie NationaleHewitt, B. G. 2005 North-West Caucasian. Lingua 115: 91-145.
Nouns Nouns in Ubykh have three main cases (the oblique-ergative case may be two homophonous cases with differing function, thus presenting four cases in total): direct or absolutive case, marked with the bare root; this indicates the subject of an intransitive sentence and the direct object of a transitive sentence (e.g. 'a man') oblique-ergative case, marked in -; this indicates either the subject of a transitive sentence, targets of preverbs, or indirect objects which do not take any other suffixes ( '(to) a child') locative case, marked in -, which is the equivalent of English in, on or at.
There are X other cases that exist in Ubykh too:
instrumental case (-) was also treated as a case in Dumézil (1975). instrumental-comitative case (-). Another pair of postpositions, - ('to[wards]') and - ('for'), have been noted as synthetic datives (e.g. 'I will send it to the prince'), but their status as cases is also best discounted.
Nouns do not distinguish grammatical gender. The definite article is (e.g. 'the man'). There is no indefinite article directly equivalent to the English a or an, but -(root)- (literally 'one'-(root)-'certain') translates French un : e.g. ('a certain young man').
Number is only marked on the noun in the ergative case, with -. The number marking of the absolutive argument is either by suppletive verb roots (e.g. 'he is in the car' vs. 'they are in the car') or by verb suffixes: ('he goes'), ('they go'). The second person plural prefix - triggers this plural suffix regardless of whether that prefix represents the ergative, the absolutive, or an oblique argument: Absolutive: ('I give you all to him') Oblique: ('he gives me to you all') Ergative: ('you all give it/them to me') Note that, in this last sentence, the plurality of it (-) is obscured; the meaning can be either 'You all give it to me' or 'You all give them to me'.
Adjectives, in most cases, are simply suffixed to the noun: ('pepper') with ('red') becomes ('red pepper'). Adjectives do not decline.
Postpositions are rare; most locative semantic functions, as well as some non-local ones, are provided with preverbal elements: ('you wrote it for me'). However, there are a few postpositions: ('like me'), ('near the prince').
Pronouns Free pronouns in all North-West Caucasian languages lack an ergative-absolutive distinction. +Free personal pronounsFirst personSecond personThird personSingularStandard(joc. )ABPluralStandardTevfik EsençOsman Güngür
Possession +Possessive pronounsFirst personSecond personThird personNormalJocularSingular----Plural---
Possessed nouns have their plurality marked with the affix .
Verbs A pastpresentfuture distinction of verb tense exists (the suffixes - and - represent past and future) and an imperfective aspect suffix is also found (-, which can combine with tense suffixes). Dynamic and stative verbs are contrasted, as in Arabic, and verbs have several nominal forms. Morphological causatives are not uncommon. The conjunctions ('and') and ('but') are usually given with verb suffixes, but there is also a free particle corresponding to each: - 'and' (free particle , borrowed from Arabic); - 'but' (free particle )
Pronominal benefactives are also part of the verbal complex, marked with the preverb -, but a benefactive cannot normally appear on a verb that has three agreement prefixes already.
Gender only appears as part of the second person paradigm, and then only at the speaker's discretion. The feminine second person index is -, which behaves like other pronominal prefixes: ('he gives [it] to you [normal; gender-neutral] for me'), but compare 'he gives [it] to you [feminine] for me').
Agreement Oblique 1 markers are limited to marking the agreement of a noun before a relational preverb and Oblique 2 markers are used for not only marking agreement with local and directional preverbs but also the simple oblique, or dative, arguments. +Pronominal Agreement MarkersAbsolutiveOblique (1 and 2)ErgativeFirst personsg. ~ ~ pl. ~ ~ Second personsg.pl. ~ ~ sg. (joc., arc.)Third personsg.pl. The second-person is an archaic pronoun used to indicate that the person being referred to is a female, or heckling the speaker in some way.
Dynamic verb conjugation Dynamic Ubykh verbs are split up in two groups: Group I which contain the simple tenses and Group II which contain derived counterpart tenses. Only the Karaclar dialect uses the progressive tense and the plural is unknown.
The singular-plural distinction is used when the subject, the ergative, is singular or plural.
Square brackets indicate elided vowels; parenthesis indicate optional parts of the stem; and the colon indicates the boundary of a morpheme. +Group ISingularPluralSimple Past --Mirative Past--Present--Future I--Future II--(Progressive)-? +Group IISingularPluralPluperfect-- ~ -/qʼɜːnɜːjtʼ/Imperfect--Conditional I--Conditional II--
Simple past The verbs in the simple past tense are conjugated with - in the singular and - in the plural.
Examples:
- to say → (s)he said - to eat → (s)he ate - to know → (s)he knew - to go → (s)he went
PluralityPersonUbykhMeaningSingularFirst-personI ateSecond-personyou ateThird-person(s)he atePluralFirst-personwe ateSecond-personyou (all) ateThird-personthey ate
Mirative past The verbs in the mirative past tense are conjugated with - in the singular and - in the plural.
Examples:
- to say → (s)he said apparently - to eat → (s)he ate apparently - to know → (s)he knew apparently - to go → (s)he went apparently
PluralityPersonUbykhMeaningSingularFirst-personI ate apparentlySecond-personyou ate apparentlyThird-person(s)he ate apparentlyPluralFirst-personwe ate apparentlySecond-personyou (all) ate apparentlyThird-personthey ate apparently
Present The verbs in the present tense are conjugated with - in the singular and - in the plural.
Examples:
- to say → (s)he says - to eat → (s)he eats - to know → (s)he knows - to go → (s)he goes
PluralityPersonUbykhMeaningSingularFirst-personI eatSecond-personyou eatThird-person(s)he eatsPluralFirst-personwe eatSecond-personyou (all) eatThird-personthey eat
Future I The verbs in the present tense are conjugated with - in the singular and - in the plural. It conveys a sense of certainty, immediacy, obligation, or intentionality.
Examples:
- to say → (s)he certainly will say - to eat → (s)he certainly will eat - to know → (s)he certainly will know - to go → (s)he certainly will go
PluralityPersonUbykhMeaningSingularFirst-personI certainly will eatSecond-personyou certainly will eatThird-person(s)he certainly will eatPluralFirst-personwe certainly will eatSecond-personyou (all) certainly will eatThird-personthey certainly will eat
Future II The verbs in the present tense are conjugated with - in the singular and - in the plural. It conveys a generic sense of the future as well as an exhortative sense such as: (let's go!).
Examples:
- to say → (s)he will say - to eat → (s)he will eat - to know → (s)he will know - to go → (s)he will go
PluralityPersonUbykhMeaningSingularFirst-personI will eatSecond-personyou will eatThird-person(s)he will eatPluralFirst-personwe will eatSecond-personyou (all) will eatThird-personthey will eat
Static verb conjugation In all dialects and speakers, only two static tenses exist: present and past. +SingularPluralPresent--Past--
Aspect There are five basic aspects that exist besides the aspects that exist within the Ubykh tense system. They are: habitual, iterative, exhaustive, excessive, and potential.
A speaker may combine one of these aspects with another to convey more complex aspects in conjunction with the tenses. +habitual-iterative-exhaustive-excessive-potential-
A few meanings covered in English by adverbs or auxiliary verbs are given in Ubykh by verb suffixes: ('I can eat it') - ('I can drink it') ('I eat it all the time') - ('I drink it all the time') ('I am eating it all up') - ('I am drinking it all up') ('I eat it too much') - ('I drink it too much') ('I eat it again') - ('I drink it again')