The Kabardinians themselves call themselves “Adygea” - they are the people of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic , the autochthons of the Caucasus, who were called Circassians in the Middle Ages. The article will discuss the language of Kabardians, its features, the history of formation, distribution, Kabardian folklore and literature.
Language Name Features
The language of Kabardinians is officially called Kabardino-Circassian, colloquially the inhabitants of the Caucasus themselves call it “adygebze” - this is the official language of the Kabardino-Balkarian and Karachay-Cherkess republics.
Some scholars believe that Adyghe, Kabardian and Circassian literature are dialects of the Adyghe language, however, Kabardinians, for example, themselves call their native language “Adygebe”, which means “Adyghe”.
But there are scholars who single out Kabardian, Adyghe and Circassian languages separately.
Language distribution
Kabardino-Circassian literature belongs to the Abkhaz-Adyghe language family - it is a group of North-West Caucasian languages.
Currently, the language is mainly spoken in Russia (Kabardino-Balkaria, Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia, Krasnodar, Stavropol Territory, Mozdok region of North Ossetia), the Middle East (Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria), the USA and Germany.
Number of Kabardian speakers
According to the 2010 census, in Russia 510 thousand people speak this language as a native, but of these, 416 thousand also know Russian.
In the world there are about 1 million 600 thousand people who speak the Kabardian language, of which 37 thousand speak only it and do not speak any additional (monolinguals). In 1995, it became the state language in Kabardino-Balkaria along with Balkar and Russian, and in 1996 - the state language in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic.
Dialects
The Kabardian language is distinguished by 8 dialects: Kuban, dialect of Bolshoi and Malaya Kabarda, Mozdok, Khabez, Baksan, Malka, Besleneyev.
The dialect of Greater Kabarda became the basis of the literary language. Discrepancies between all other dialects are manifested mainly in phonetics and morphology. The Mozdok dialect is very different from the literary language.
Writing
Until the beginning of the 19th century, there were several attempts to create a written language based on Arabic.
In 1829, I. Gratsilevsky, a teacher at St. Petersburg University, created the Kabardian alphabet based on the Cyrillic alphabet.
In 1832, the Kabardian enlightener Shora Nogmov composed the alphabet, first based on the Cyrillic alphabet, and then on the Arabic graphic basis.
Until 1924, both Cyrillic and the Arabic alphabet were used for writing , in 1930 the Latin alphabet was used, but from 1936 to the present, the Kabardian language is written in Cyrillic.
The Kabardian modern alphabet consists of 19 double, 5 triple characters and one that consists of four letters - “khyu”.
The uniqueness of the alphabet is due to the fact that in the Kabardian language there are a huge number of phonemes, and in the Russian alphabet a limited number of characters, so I had to resort to a combination of letters.
Kabardian literature
In the Kabardino-Balkarian language, both Circassian and Kabardian poets and writers wrote, the most popular of them:
- Kabardian: Shortanov Askerby, Puchev Bekmurza, Shogentsukov Adam and Ali, Balkarov Fousat, Kuashev Betal, Sokurov Musarbi, Shomakhov Amirkhan, Beshtokov Khasab, Teunov Khachim, Keshokov Alim, Thagazitov Zuber.
- Circassian: Alim Hanfenov, Vladimir Abitov and Khazir, Kokhov Tsuts, Bekizov Leila, Khashokov Khusin, Abukov Khalid, Dyshekov Magomet, Akhmetov Mukhadin, Brothers Gabas.
Books, magazines and newspapers are published in the Kabardian language, for example, Circassian Haku, Adyghe Psalje. There are sites on the Internet that are devoted to the morphology of the language, its history. Both on the Internet and in the print media there are phrasebooks and translators from Kabardian into Russian and vice versa. Literary works are written on it, but a special place among them is folklore, in which the most unique are the vocal works of this people.
Kabardian song
Vocal folklore works are numerous and genrely diverse: tales songs, historical songs, Nart legends, lament songs.
Labor, comic and everyday songs are very popular among Kabardians.
Many Kabardian folk songs, tales, and legends were of ritual significance. Ancient songs were mostly performed solo, to the accompaniment of bass notes of the choir, which were interrupted by exclamations of the refrain.
For example, there is an old song very famous in Kabardino-Balkaria called “Crying for Abker Zelimkhan”. The genre of songs that were composed about great grief is called "gybze". The author of the Kabardian words of this work is unknown, but Zaramuk Kardangushev was a wonderful contemporary performer. He was a collector, performer and narrator of vocal folklore works, a famous writer, ethnographer and artist.