Talk:Abkhaz alphabet

Letters Й and Ў

Is the letter Й in the Abkhaz alphabet? --84.61.45.143 14:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Is the letter Ў in the Abkhaz alphabet? --84.61.45.143 14:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

They are not. Sephia karta 23:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Come to think of it, they were once apparently (at least Й was), in a previous incarnation of the alphabet. sephia karta 03:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Improvement

User Mikkalei, I saw that you reverted some of my changes, and then reintroduced them. I just wanted to note that to my knowledge, this is what the Abkhaz alphabet looks like, based on the "Abkhaz Newspaper Reader" by Hewitt and Khiba. The body text needs improvement though, and ideally the table should be expanded to include past Abkhaz alphabets and different transliteration schemes. Sephia karta 03:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

what's the point of the last sentence which states that the word alphabet was borrowed from georgian language? is it to show that abkhaz language is somehow connected to georgian? that's silly. it should be deleted. intelligent people and linguists know that the two languages almost have no relation at all. Zone 23:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Nobody denies that these languages aren't related at all. However if it's true (that анбан is alphabet in Abkhaz) I don't think it should be removed. Alæxis_¿question? 05:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Neither do I. — N-true 15:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Derivation of 'анбан'

The article used to state: The Abkhaz word for alphabet is анбан (anban), which was borrowed from Georgian ანბანი (anbani).

The derivation of the word was disputed on the article page, which is now moved here:

This is not true. The Abkhaz word 'ANBAH' was never borrowod from Georgian.. It is a compound word which are:

• AN ; mean is: Writing,İnscribed,Having write,On some thing...
• BAN; mean is: See,Seeing,İndicate,İmage,Show,Show having put on some think...

Soo ANBAN; mean is: İnscribe w/writing,Show w/writing,İndicate having put on some think. For this no need to be a Linguists for god sake.It is sin always giving credit to big thief instead innocent smallCountries.

Zihni Pısyıpa.

—Coroboy (talk) 13:36, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Zihni’s etymology is false. Anban is borrowed from Georgian. Apswaaa (talk) 14:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Ҕ or Ӷ?

An anon recently made an edit contradicting what the article earlier said regarding hooks and descenders. What is correct? I note that one of the sources used has the following to say:

An interesting feature of Abkhaz orthographies is an evolution in orthographic preference from letters with hook and middle hook gradually being given up for letters with descender. This document requests the addition of CYRILLIC LETTER PE WITH DESCENDER, which is used in modern Abkhaz orthography in replacement of the CYRILLIC LETTER PE WITH MIDDLE HOOK which was previously used.

I also note that the name of the interwiki link to the ab.wikipedia reads Аҧсшәа. Njardarlogar (talk) 15:42, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Дә дә

Are you sure about Дә дә || Дәы || də || /d͡b/ The 'db' seems rather odd... Alæxis_¿question? 20:22, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Notification

Help needed here. Alaexis_¿question? 07:14, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Chirikba transliteration needs improvement

@Alaexis: Thank you for improving the transliteration table by adding a column for TITUS and its differences from Viacheslav Chirikba's transliteration scheme. However, I believe some of the symbols used by Chirikba are missing or incorrect in the table. For example, Chirikba seems to use <j> instead of <i> for <и>, and uses <t'>, <h>, and <č’ʹ> for what I'm guessing are <т>, <ҳ>, and <ч> respectively. There may be further discrepancies. As it stands, the table in the article cannot be used to transliterate to or from Chirikba's scheme. If I was certain about the correct substitutions, I'd add them myself, but alas I don't know enough Abkhaz to be sure. —Psychonaut (talk) 15:18, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for checking it. That's right, Chirikba never uses upper or lower dots, so all of these letters need to be fixed. I also don't know Abkhaz so I'll do my best and if it doesn't work we can just remove Chirikba. Regarding <и>, the TITUS system says is can be transliterated both as <i> and <j> depending on the pronunciation, so there is no discrepancy. Alaexis_¿question? 15:32, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

@Psychonaut: Can you review the current version? Alaexis_¿question? 18:35, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

@Alaexis: I've compared the current table to the one in Chirikba and have the following observations:

• Chirikba's table includes ⟨kᵒ⟩, but this symbol is not found in our table.
• Chirikba's table includes ⟨ɣᵒ⟩, but this symbol is not found in our table.
• Our table includes ⟨k′ᵒ⟩, but this symbol is not found in Chirikba's table.
• Our table includes ⟨ɣᵒ′⟩, but this symbol is not found in Chirikba's table.
• Our table indicates that the transliteration for ⟨у⟩ is "w, u, ᵒ" but Chirikba uses only ⟨w⟩ and ⟨u⟩.

Note that the list above is simply based on checking for the presence or absence of corresponding symbols in the two tables and the associated text. I don't know enough about Abkhaz to know whether or not the existing mappings of Abkhaz letters to Chirikba symbols are actually correct.

Some further typographical issues:

• The table uses º (the masculine ordinal indicator) where it should instead use ᵒ (modifier letter small O from the phonetic extensions block). This is particularly important because in many fonts º is displayed as a circle with an underline, not a plain circle as Chirikba uses.
• The table uses ' (the ASCII upright apostrophe character) where it should instead use ʹ (prime).

—Psychonaut (talk) 11:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@Psychonaut: Thanks a lot for reviewing it! The first four discrepancies are due to my mistake. Regarding the transliteration of ⟨у⟩ as ⟨ᵒ⟩, it is only true for pre-1996 reform alphabet in which the labialisation had been indicated by ⟨у⟩ sometimes (thankfully they got rid of this). I've added a note to that effect.

I'm not sure I understand the typographical issues. Chirikba uses two apostrophe-like characters for ejective consonants and palatalisation which I wrote as ⟨’⟩ and ⟨'). What exactly are you suggesting to replace with ʹ (prime)? And regarding small oh-s, should I just replace all of them with ᵒ? Alaexis_¿question? 18:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@Alaexis: I'm suggesting that we replace ⟨'⟩ with ⟨ʹ⟩, because the latter glyph more closely visually resembles the symbol that Chirikba uses and because transliteration systems for other Cyrillic alphabets commonly use it for the same purpose (i.e., to indicate palatalization). The ⟨’⟩ character can stay as-is. For the superscript rings, yes, all the instances of ⟨º⟩ should be replaced, though it occurs to me that the TITUS document you cite uses ⟨°⟩ (the degree symbol) instead of ⟨ᵒ⟩. Either one of the latter is probably OK. —Psychonaut (talk) 17:58, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Done. I've chosen the degree symbol but I don't have a strong opinion about it. Alaexis_¿question? 18:48, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Added Ҕ and Ҧ next to Ӷ and Ԥ

I added Ҕ and Ҧ next to Ӷ and Ԥ. I also added Ҕь and Ҕә next to Ӷь and Ӷә. Chiagozie Elobuike (talk) 01:37, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Soft sign and shwa

Kepler-1229b, I see that you've added the soft sign and shwa to the list. I think that they are usually treated as parts of digraphs like кь and not as standalone letters (see for example Chirikba, p. 15). Are there sources which describe them as letters? Alaexis_¿question? 20:53, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I found them on Omniglot. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 21:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Since we have a book on the Abkhaz language which does not include these characters in the alphabet, I think that it is a more reliable source than Omniglot. Please see the clarification that I've added to the article. Alaexis_¿question? 19:58, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

In the notes for Ref. 7, it says that Ь and Ә are separate. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 21:57, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I've rechecked the two sources which contain the alphabet (Chirikba 2003 and Hewitt 1998) and the former actually lists Ь and Ә as separate letters, so I made a mistake in my first comment of this thread.

So we have 2 sources (Hewitt & TITUS transliteration) that don't include them and 2 source (Chirikba & Omniglot) that include them. Personally I still think they should not be included as they can only be used as part of the digraphs listed in the table, but I would be fine with listing them with a note. Alaexis_¿question? 20:33, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Ӄ and Ꚋ

Were these old letters of the Abkhaz alphabet? Chiagozie Elobuike (talk) 18:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Not additional letters, just graphic variants of Қ and Ҭ. Қ and Ҭ were the original forms, then in the 1920s people started experimenting with forms that are more visually distinct, like Ӄ and Ꚋ, and now the convention has returned to the more understated Қ and Ҭ forms. — kwami (talk) 21:29, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Source removed

Kwamikagami, I see that you removed the source for the change from hook to descender, what was the problem with it? Alaexis_¿question? 20:22, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, that source was fine. Thanks for catching my error; I just restored it. I had removed it because I removed the statement it was attached to as trivia, and didn't realize it supported the earlier material, as well as justifying my removal of some earlier misinformation. — kwami (talk) 20:58, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Alaexis_¿question? 08:09, 25 June 2023 (UTC)