Adyghe phonology

Adyghe exhibits a large number of consonants: between 50 and 60 consonants in the various Adyghe dialects. All dialects possess a contrast between plain and labialized glottal stops. A very unusual minimal contrast, and possibly unique to the Abdzakh dialect of Adyghe, is a three-way contrast between plain, labialized and palatalized glottal stops (although a palatalized glottal stop is also found in Hausa). The Black Sea dialect of Adyghe contains a very uncommon sound: a bidental fricative, which corresponds to the voiceless velar fricative found in other varieties of Adyghe. Many Adyghe speakers (like most speakers of Kabardian) pronounce some of the ejective consonants as pharyngealized ejective consonants ([pˤʼ], [tˤʼ], [sˤʼ], [ɬˤʼ] [t͡sˤʼ]) or as pharyngealized consonants ([pˤ], [tˤ], [sˤ], [ɬˤ] [t͡sˤ]). The West Circassian dialects (e.g. Bzhedug, Shapsug, Temirgoy and Abzakh) lost the consonant [xʷ] and it became [f]. In the East Circassian languages (e.g. Kabardian) it's still pronounced as [xʷ], for example the Adyghe word "тфы" ( "five" is тхуы in Kabardian. The only case the consonant [xʷ] is used in Adyghe is the suffix -шхо /-ʃxʷa/ which means big or mighty, for example унэ /wəna/ "house" and тхьэ /tħa/ "God" to унэшхо /wənaʃxʷa/ "large house" and тхьэшхо /tħaʃxʷa/ "mighty God".  The phoneme written Л л can be pronounced  or.


 * 1) In the Shapsug dialect (Adyghe: Шапсыгъэбзэ) (e.g. the Kfar Kama dialect), there exist an alveolar ejective fricative  and a labialized voiceless palato-alveolar affricate  that correspond to [t͡sʼ] and [t͡sʷ] in other dialects, for example the Shapsug words "шӀусӀэ" (ʃʷ'əs'a) "black" and "чуакъо" (t͡ʃʷaːqʷa) "shoes" are pronounced in other dialects as "шӀуцӀэ" (ʃʷ'ət͡s'a) and "цуакъо" (t͡sʷaːqʷa). In the Shapsug dialect there is a palatalized voiced velar plosive  and a palatalized voiceless velar plosive  that were merged with [d͡ʒ] and [t͡ʃ] in other Adyghe dialects, for example the Shapsug words "гьанэ" (ɡʲaːna) "shirt" and "кьэт" (kʲat) "chicken" are pronounced in other dialects as "джанэ" (d͡ʒaːna) and "чэт" (t͡ʃat).
 * 2) Consonants that exist only in borrowed words.
 * 3) In the Adyghe Temirgoy dialect, the consonant [ɣ] became [ɡ].

Despite the wealth of consonants, Adyghe has only three phonemic vowels in a classic vertical vowel system.