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= Abkhaz script =

The Abkhaz script is the writing system of the Abkhaz language. During its existence, it has changed its graphic basis several times and has been reformed several times. At present, the Abkhaz script operates in the Cyrillic alphabet. There are 4 stages in the history of Abkhaz writing:


 * 1862-1926 - writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet
 * 1926-1938 - Latin-based writing
 * 1938-1954 - writing based on the Georgian alphabet
 * since 1954 - writing on the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet

Background
Until the middle of the XIX century, the Abkhaz language did not have its own written language. The literate population of Abkhazia used Greek (until the IX century), Georgian (IX-XIX centuries) and Turkish (XVIII century) languages as a literary language. At the same time, some researchers have tried to decipher ancient inscriptions found in the western Caucasus (for example, the Maikop plate) on the basis of the Abkhaz language.

The first records of the Abkhaz language appeared in the 1640s, when the Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote down 40 Abkhaz words and phrases in Arabic. Later, in the XVIII - early XIX centuries, records of individual Abkhaz words and phrases are recorded in the works of I. A. Guldenstedt, G. Rosen, P. S. Pallas and J. Klaproth.

Uslar Cyrillic
In 1862, the Russian scientist P. K. Uslar published the first grammar of the Abkhaz language - the monograph "Абхазский язык". The first Abkhaz alphabet was attached to this book.

The Abkhaz alphabet, compiled by Uslar, was based on the Cyrillic alphabet. When creating the alphabet, Uslar used the developments of Academician Sjögren, which he used in the 1840s to create the Ossetian Cyrillic script. In the first Abkhaz alphabet there were 55 characters (in the edition all of them are given only in handwritten form). The main array of letters was taken from the Russian alphabet: а, б, в, г, д, е, ж, з, і, к, л, м, н, о, п, р, с, т, у, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, ѵ. Some letters were modified signs of the Russian alphabet - ӡ, ҩ, ҽ, ꚏ, ꚅ, ꚗ. From the Greek alphabet, Uslar took the letters ꚃ and ꚍ, from the Georgian - წ, ჭ and others (4 characters in total), from the Latin - һ, ꚕ, ј, ԛ. In addition, various diacritics were used in the alphabet - breve ( ̆) above the letters ꚅ, ꚍ, ꚏ, ҽ, ш, ꚗ, cedilla ( ̧) under the letters г, к, п, с, т and acute ( ́) above the letter х.

In 1865, under the leadership of General I. A. Bartholomew, the first Abkhaz primer was issued, in which the Uslar alphabet was used with minimal changes. Also, in a slightly modified form, this alphabet was used in the primer of 1892, compiled by K. D. Machavariani and D. Gulia. In 1887, Uslar's monograph was republished by Mikhail Zavadsky. At the same time, the handwritten letters used in the first edition were replaced by printed ones, and some changes were made to their appearance. In particular, the cedilla was replaced by a letter comma, and the Georgian letters were replaced by Cyrillic ones. In the future, the Abkhaz writing began to develop on the basis of this particular version of the alphabet.

At the end of the XIX century, a modified version of the Uslar-Zavadsky alphabet was adopted by the Abkhaz Translation Committee, which was engaged in translating the Bible into the Abkhaz language. Mainly religious literature was published in this alphabet, but in small quantities also educational and fiction. With minor changes, it was used in a series of primers compiled by Andrey Chochua (the first of them was published in 1909 and, with minor changes, was reprinted until 1925). This alphabet was valid until 1926, it published educational and fiction literature, newspapers, etc., but the alphabet did not have a stable norm, and in different editions its composition could vary slightly.

The alphabet of the translation committee was as follows:

Latin alphabet


The first experience of creating the Abkhaz alphabet based on the Latin script was undertaken in 1919, when a primer by Mustafa Butba was published in Istanbul. The alphabet of this primer was as follows: a, e, ı, i, o, u, ᴇ, b, p, t, c, ç, h, x, x̂, d, z, r, j, ӡ, s, ŝ, g, ĝ, f, k, q, q̂, l, m, n, v, y. However, this alphabet has not received practical application. Also in modern Turkey, attempts are being made to create an Abkhaz script in the Latin alphabet.

In 1926, in the Abkhaz SSR, within the framework of the all-Union process of romanization, a new writing system was adopted on the basis of the Latin script - the so-called Abkhaz analytical alphabet, developed by Academician N. Y. Marr and previously used in scientific publications. Book publishing began on this alphabet, it was introduced in schools, but its extreme complexity (64 characters + 9 characters of the Bzyb dialect, "two-tier" diacritics, the complexity of graphic style), as well as the process of unification of the alphabets of the peoples of the USSR, which was gaining momentum, soon forced it to be abandoned

In 1928, S. Chanba, M. Khashba and Nikolai Feofanovich Yakovlev developed a new Abkhaz alphabet based on Latin. This alphabet proved to be more convenient than Marr's analytical alphabet, and it was soon adopted as official. In this alphabet, compared to the previous ones, separate signs for palatalized sounds were abolished, and the sign ı was introduced instead. The sign u was used to indicate labialization. This made it possible to reduce the size of the alphabet to 51 characters. However, N. F. Yakovlev noted that further (up to 40) reduction of alphabet characters is also possible. In 1933, in order to simplify, capital letters were excluded from the alphabet. This alphabet functioned until 1938.

In the 1990s, several projects were proposed to translate the Abkhaz script into the Latin alphabet, but they were never implemented.

In 2019, the Abkhaz linguist and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia V. Chirikba came up with a project to create a single alphabet based on the Latin alphabet for the Abkhaz and Abaza languages; One of the goals is to eliminate differences in the transmission of the same phonetic phenomena, which is why texts in the closely related Abaza language in modern graphics are practically unreadable for Abkhazians, and vice versa; In a single graphic, the related words of both languages are easily recognizable.

Alphabet based on Georgian
Abkhaz alphabet based on Georgian

In 1937, at the Abkhaz Regional Conference of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia, it was decided to transfer the Abkhaz script to the Georgian graphic basis. In December of the same year, at a meeting at the Abkhaz Research Institute, the submitted drafts of the alphabet were considered. Two main projects were considered: the project of D. I. Gulia, S. N. Janashia and A. G. Shanidze, in which it was proposed to display specific Abkhaz sounds with the help of service icons, as well as the project of M. L. Khashba and A. M. Chochua, in which it was proposed to use special letter styles for each sound. As a result, an alphabet based on the project of Gulia, Janashia and Shanidze was adopted.

The new Abkhaz alphabet includes all 33 letters of the Georgian alphabet (ა, ბ, გ, დ, ე, ვ, ზ, თ, ი, კ, ლ, მ, ნ, ო, პ, ჟ, რ, ს, ტ, უ, ფ, ქ, ღ, ყ, შ, ჩ, ც, ც, ძ, წ, ჭ, ხ, ჯ, ჰ), as well as the additional letters ჶ, ჷ, ჳ. In addition, additional signs ჲ, ჾ, ჿ were used, placed after the main letter to denote palatalized, intense and labialized consonants, respectively.

Modern alphabet
In 1954, the Cyrillic alphabet was reintroduced instead of the alphabet based on the Georgian script. At its core, it was based on the Uslar-Zavadsky alphabet, although it underwent significant changes. The alphabet includes 38 single letters and 18 digraphs.

Labialized consonants are indicated by digraphs using the schwa sign - ә. Prior to the 1996 spelling reform, six labialized sounds were denoted not by ә, but by у: гу, ҕу, ку, қу, ҟу, ху; These six digraphs did not officially occupy a separate place in the alphabet. According to H. S. Bgazhba, this was due to the fact that these consonants have a slightly different character of labialization.

Palatalized consonants are indicated by digraphs using a soft sign (ь) and all occupy a separate place in the alphabet.

Currently, the Abkhaz alphabet is as follows: The outline of the letters Ԥ and Ӷ has changed throughout history: gradually, instead of a hook, the lower descender element began to be used. In 2008, in Unicode (version 5.2), the modern Ӷ and Ԥ drawings were encoded separately from Ge with middle hook and Pe with middle hook; Ҕ and Ҧ are supposed to be used to reflect the old spelling.

Comparison of Abkhaz language writing systems
The table below shows:


 * 1) Modern Abkhaz alphabet based on Cyrillic
 * 2) Transcription with IPA signs
 * 3) Transliteration according to ISO 9:1995 and GOST 7.79-2000.
 * 4) The alphabet of P. K. Uslar edited by M. R. Zavadsky (1887)
 * 5) Alphabet of the Translation Committee
 * 6) The Abkhaz Analytical Alphabet by N. Y. Marr (1926-1928)
 * 7) Latin-based Abkhaz alphabet (1928-1938) (due to the absence of a number of characters of this alphabet in Unicode, they are transmitted using images)
 * 8) Abkhazian alphabet on Georgian basis (1938-1954)

Cells with characters that were not officially part of the alphabet are highlighted in gray.

Sample text
Example of a text in the Abkhaz language (excerpt from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights): Ахәҭаҷ 1 Дарбанзаалак ауаҩы дшоуп ихы дақәиҭны. Ауаа зегь зинлеи патулеи еиҟароуп. Урҭ ирымоуп ахшыҩи аламыси, дара дарагь аешьеи аешьеи реиԥш еизыҟазароуп.

Ахәҭаҷ 2 Дарбанзаалак ауаҩы абри Адекларациа ирыланаҳәо азинқәеи ахақәиҭрақәеи зегь имазароуп, милаҭлеи, хаҵалеи ԥҳәыслеи, бызшәалеи, хылҵшьҭралеи, динлеи, маллеи, маҵуралеи, нхарҭа ҭыԥлеи дунеихәаԥшышьалеи, цәаԥшшәахәылеи дызҵазкуазаалак.

Иара убас дахьықәнхо атәыла аполитикатә, азинтә, ма Адунеижәларбжьаратәи астатус зеиԥшразаалак, уи атәыла хьыԥшымзаргь, ма ахатә напхгара амамкуа азәыр инапаҵаҟа иҟазагь, мамзаргьы даҽакала ахақәиҭра наза амамзаргьы.