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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Vito Genovese (talk | contribs) at 13:19, 13 April 2017 (→‎Refutations of recent claims: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Proto-Northwest Caucasian research

has anyone on here done any research on proto-northwest caucasian? Gringo300 09:50, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've left a note on your user talk page. I've done a little bit of etymological work during the course of my compiling a dictionary of Ubykh; not a whole lot, mind you, but enough to come to the conclusion that Sergei Starostin's Proto-World Dene-Caucasian work perhaps shouldn't be taken at face value. If you want to ask me anything, leave a note on my user talk page, or you can email me at the address I've left on your user talk page. Best, Thefamouseccles 13:24, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ibero-Caucasian not appropriate here

The stuff on (Ibero)-Caucasian repeats texts on the "Languages of the Caucasus" page. It should be merged into that page, leaving here a link "Various higher-level connections have been proposed between the North Caucasian languages and other families."
The Hattic parag too is duplicated, although the proper place for that is a tougher question.
Jorge Stolfi 06:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Go ahead and move the Ibero-Caucasian stuff. Hattic belongs here. I think some proposals are that Hattic was a NWC language, not that they were related at a higher level. kwami 07:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

2-vowel systems

If I remember correctly, the 2-vowel systems are analysed as /a/ and /ə/, with /ɨ/ being epenthetic. But I might be confusing them with Ndu in PNG. If s.o. knows or has a ref, could you verify? Thanks. kwami 07:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at: Hewitt, B. G. 2005. North-West Caucasian, in Lingua vol. 115. He sums up the current position: questions of vowels need to be treated separately for each different language, and the question appears to have been satisfactorily solved only for Abkhaz and Abaza (2 vowels (a vs ə/ɨ) + length for a only) and Kabardian (3 vowels (a vs ə vs ɨ); see Catford, J. C. 1997 Some Questions of NWC Phonetics and Phonology. In: Ozsoy, A. S. Proceedings of the Conference on Northwest Caucasian Linguistics. Novus Forlag: Oslo), and one would imagine that Adyghe's vocalic system would parallel that of Kabardian. The Ubykh situation has not yet been resolved, but my personal opinion is that Ubykh's vocalic system is the same as that of Adyghe and Kabardian, although most modern transcriptions (including my own, I admit) treat it as a long version of a. thefamouseccles 12:51, 18 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Kh or x?

Kwami, I see that you have replaced Abkhaz/Ubykh by Abxaz/Ubyx. However, the name of the country is still spelled Abkhazia in most English sources, and that seems to be the case for the language as well. So, even though the "x" spelling smay be more accurate technically speaking, perhaps the "kh" spellings should be retained as the main names, with the "x" spellings in paretheses?
Jorge Stolfi 16:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe. A lot of these names are difficult for English speakers to read, and the fewer digraphs the better from that perspective. kwami 19:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The average English speaker, never having heard of Ubykh, would probably pronounce it as "ubiks" if it were written as Ubyx. English speakers are used to seeing digraphs anyway; Kazakh, lakh and Sikh don't seem to provide any problem. Aside from which, the Googlefight results are about as conclusive as one can get with such a simplistic (puerile?) tool:
Ubykh vs Ubyx: 94,300 vs 764 (ratio of 123 to 1)
Abkhaz vs Abxaz: 415,000 vs 1,370 (ratio of 303 to 1)
thefamouseccles 12:58, 18 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Circassian vs. Northwest Caucasian

Circassian is only a branch of NWC. NWC is never called Circassian.--Pet'usek [petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom] 07:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Circassian is the name givven to Northwest Caucasians by foreigners for a very long time, Thanks to Zirgs. None of the tribes used that name for themselves or other tribes,so it is not a branch, just an umbrella term for a aggregate culture of NW Caucasians. Russian use of "Cherkess" is only political. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.214.101.159 (talk) 13:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Recent deletions

To the recent user at IP address 69.251.74.46, if you're going to delete content, especially content that is referenced, please cite reasons for the deletion. Thefamouseccles (talk) 05:15, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Refutations of recent claims

Hello everyone,

I object to some edits that User:Listofpeople made recently to several articles concerning Northwest Caucasian languages, so I'll be reverting these edits in a couple of minutes based on my arguments below. The edits concern multiple pages, so I thought it would be healthier to keep the discussion central. I'll be making a note of the issue in all relevant talk pages, and invite people to this discussion. Please do not revert my edits until the discussion is over. Now is the time to discuss!

I wish to keep everything based on science, so I'll be citing works from the field of linguistics. However, I don't intend to bombard this discussion with references, so for the purposes of keeping it concise, I'll only list the 5 most cited works about the respective topic. But, of course, I can provide further refs if requested.

Claim #1: Kabardian is a dialect of the Adyghe language.

Response #1: No. Kabardian is a distinct language, which is mutually intelligible with Adyghe.

If one considers these authors too "local" or too "involved", here are is a paper from "mainstream" linguists:

Result #1: I'll be reverting Special:Diff/769188092, and the relevant edits to the articles such as Shapsug Adyghe dialect (which refer to the respective topics as sub-dialects). There are many more edits, such as this, and it is not possible to list all of them. But I'll certainly cite this discussion when I revert the edits. I'll not be intervening with the inappropriate redirects such as Shapsug Adyghe sub-dialect, since marking them for deletion would be disrespectful until the discussion is over.

Claim #2: There is a Circassian language, which has two dialects: Kabardian Adyghe and Lowland Adyghe.

Response #2: You are right about Adyghe being commonly referred to as Circassian, however from a linguistic point of view, here is the hierarchical structure that is agreed upon:

  • Northwest Caucasian languages -> This is a language family
    • Circassian languages -> This is a branch/subdivision of the language family
      • Adyghe language -> This is a language
        • Shapsug -> This is a dialect
        • Xakuchi
        • Bezhedukh
        • Abadzex
        • Natujaz
      • Kabardian language -> Again, language
        • Please see below for the dialects of Kabardian
    • Abkhaz-Abaza languages -> Again, this is a branch/subdivision
      • Abkhaz language
      • Abaza language
    • Ubykh -> This is the third branch with a single language
      • Ubykh language -> Again, language

About the dialects of Kabardian, Smeets (1984, p. 41) groups Kabardian dialects into three categories: West Kabardian, including Kuban and Kuban-Zelenchuk, Central Kabardian, which includes Baksan and Malka, and East Kabardian, comprising the Terek and Mozdok varieties. On the other hand, there are of course contradicting claims, but this is not the focus of our discussion at the moment. But please note that I will not be reverting Special:Diff/769193729 until our discussion here matures.

If I have to return to the claim and respond: No, "Circassian languages" is a subdivision of the Northwest Caucasian language family. Here are the five most cited sources:

Also, the term "Lowland Adyghe" is not established in the literature. A Google Scholar search results in "lowland+adyghe" 0 results. Our naming conventions are clear about this, as we all know.

Result #2: I will be reverting Special:Diff/769162832 and anything relevant.

Claim #3: Ubkyh is an oral variety / sub-dialect of the Circassian language.

Response #2: No no no no... While it is true that Ubkyh does not have a writing system, and is dead as of 1992, it certainly a distinct language that is not even grouped under the Circassian languages subdivision. Ubkyh is one of the prominent examples of dead languages that is commonly referred to. I believe it would not be easy to find a source that claims the opposite. I'll not make a five-item list for this one (here is a random, open-access article in English language), just see the works of Dumézil, who worked closely with Esenç, the last native speaker, or Özsoy, who has works published in Turkish (also worked with Esenç), which I think you'd understand, Listofpeople, since you seem to be a fellow native Turkish speaker (forgive me if I'm mistaken).

Result #3: I'll be reverting Special:Diff/769286016, Special:Diff/771617534, etc.

Even though the burden of proof is on User:Listofpeople, I've tried to make it crystal clear that these edits do not reflect the consensus of the linguistic community, so should not be repeated. I am willins to have a fruitful discussion about this and respond to any counter-arguments that anyone may have, but I urge Listofpeople or anyone else to refrain from repeating these edits until are discussion here is over. Thank you.

Vito Genovese 13:19, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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