Kabardian language
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The Kabardian language is closely related to the Adyghe language, both members of the Northwest Caucasian language family, mainly spoken in Jordan, Turkey, and the Kabardino-Balkar Republic of Russia. It has 48 consonant phonemes (of which an amazing 22 are fricatives), but just two 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, Besleney and Terek (the latter being the literary standard). Some argue that Kabardian is only a dialect of an overarching Circassian language that also includes the various Adyghe dialects.
Kabardian is written in a form of the Cyrillic alphabet, and like all Northwest Caucasian languages, has an extremely complex verbal system.
External links
- Ethnologue: Kabardian (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=KAB)
- Kabardian (къэбэрдеибзэ) alphabet (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/kabardian.htm)