Kabardian is a North West Caucasian language with about 1.9 million speakers mainly in the Kabardino-Balkarian and Karachay-Cherkess Republics in the southwest of the Russian Federation. It is also spoken in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and the USA.
Kabardian is also known as East Circassian, Eastern Adyghe or Upper Circassian. It is closely related to Adyghe, which is also known as West Circassian. Some people believe they are varieties of one language.
Kabardian is an offical language in the Kabardian-Balkar and Karachay-Circassian Republics of Russia, and is recognised as a minority language in Jordan and Syria.
Before the 19th century, Kabardian did not have its own alphabet. Instead, Kabardians used Ottoman Turkish as their literary language. From the 1820s, ways to write Kabardian with the Arabic and Cyrillic scripts were devised. These were used until 1924, when the Latin alphabet was adopted. In 1936, the Latin alphabet was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet. In the early 21st century, the Adyghe Language Teacher Association (ADDER), based in Konya in Turkey, started promoted a new Latin alphabet for Kabardian, which is supported by the Turkish government, but not by Kabardian speakers.
Download an alphabet chart for Kabardian (Excel)
The transliteration systems used are the scholarly system, the ADDER system and the BGN/PCGN system.
ЦIыху псори щхьэхуиту, я щIыхьымрэ я хуэфащэхэмрэкIэ зэхуэдэу къалъхур. Акъылрэ зэхэщIыкI гъуазэрэ яIэщи, зыр зым зэкъуэш зэхащІэ яку дэлъу зэхущытын хуейхэщ.
C̣əxu psorʾ ŝḥăxuitu, jā ṣ̂əḥəmră jā xuăfаŝăxămrăč̣ʼă zăxuădău q̇аłxur. Aq̇əlră zăxăṣ̂əč̣i ġuаzără jāʾăṣ̂i, zər zəm zăq̇uăš zăxаŝІă jāku dăłu zăxuŝətəн xuejxăŝ.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Source: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/kbd.pdf
Information Kabardian | Numbers | Tower of Babel
Information about the Kabardian/Circassian language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabardian_language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_languages
https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/kaba1278
http://www.language-archives.org/language/kbd
https://www.sil.org/resources/search/language/kbd
Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Kabardian, Ubykh
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Languages written with the Latin alphabet
Page last modified: 25.05.26
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