Extinct Languages #1 // Ubykh // extinct since 7th October, 1992

[linguaholic]

Exting Languages #1, Ubykh

Today I would like to raise your awareness for one of far too many extinct languages: The language is called Ubykh and the last native speaker known to date is Tevfiq Esenç who died in 1992 (88 years old at that time).

Some facts about Ubykh

The Ubykh language was a language of the Caucasus, where it was traditinoally spoken around Sochi on the Black Sea coast. The language is related to Adyghe, Abkhaz and Kabardian. All those relatives survived till today and they are spoken in situ around the northern shores of the Black Sea and the northern borders of Gerogie.

Why did the language die out?

After a century of warfare, the Russian invasion of Circassia in 1864 led to the „clearance“ of the 50'000 Ubykh speakers. The survivors were moving into the lands of the Ottoman empire and the remaining Ubykh ultimately settled some villages by the Sea of Marmara, Haci Osman and some other places not so far south of Instanbul in Turkey.

Characteristics of the language Ubykh

Ubyk is a highly agglutinative language. What is an agglutinative language? Wikipedia defines it as follows:

„In agglutinative languages, each affix typically represents one unit of meaning (such as "diminutive", "past tense", "plural", etc.), and bound morphemes are expressed by affixes (and not by internal changes of the root of the word, or changes in stress or tone). Additionally, and most importantly, in an agglutinative language affixes do not become fused with others, and do not change form conditioned by others.“

You will find the full article here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutinative_language

So, let's get back to the topic. Ubykh, as mentioned previously is a highly agglutinative language and therefore Ubykh contains very long words that have the value of sentences: For example, there is the word : šek'aajəfanamət which means „we shall not be able to go back“. Moreover the language has a lot of different consonants (in total 83, as mentioned) but only a few vowels, to be more specific, only 2 !

At this point I would like to mention the valuable contribution about an other highly agglutinative language by our global administrator "BWL. You should have a look at it to get a better feeling for "agglutinative languages":

http://linguaholic.com/general-discussion/the-world's-most-difficult-language-your-opinion/

[BWL]

This is an incredible language. There are only two vowels but they change pronunciation depending on what consonant comes before them! It is amazing to listen to!

I found some incredible sound clips of Tevfik Esenç speaking Ubykh before his death.

http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/pangloss/tools/show_text_en.php?id=crdo-UBY_CHEVRE_SOUND&id_ref=crdo-UBY_CHEVRE

[mareebaybay]

This is interesting, because I was never aware of extinct languages. This is something that most people would never even know about, nor would they question it.

[Trellum]

Uhm this is really sad, but at the same time really interesting!  And I thought ladino was in a big trouble!  I guess this is the fate of a lot languages, including my loved ladino hara. Sadly the link posted by BWL didn't open here   I'd have loved to listen what this dead language sounded like, it sounds so interesting from what I read from the admin's and BWL posts.  Thanks for sharing this   I had no idea this language even existed!

[Dieselfit]

It's really too bad that they are extinct. I'm sure a group of people would benefit from learning these languages as no one around them would understand a word they're saying. Imagine hearing a group of managers and upper level staff speaking these languages, who would be able to translate them?

Great list though. I never even knew about this either!

[zambothegreat]

BWL's link didn't open for me either. Here's a video where a small lesson in Ubykh is taught in French:

It's hard to make out what he says, but starting at 1:50, he talks about a few words that start with the letter q, which would make a "kha" sound, or something similar to that. "Courire" is jogging, "la tombe" is the grave, and "la parole" is speech. I can't make out the rest of what he says.

[leahcim132]

A fine language that has been extinct for a while. It's such a cool language... but it seems as though no one wants to "continue" it.

[MyDigitalpoint]

This is interesting, because I was never aware of extinct languages. This is something that most people would never even know about, nor would they question it.

So true, there are countless civilizations we ignore what their languages were and there are still many other extinct languages we rarely (or never) think about until someone brings them to our attention, just like in this interesting reading.

[jbepp]

Definitely an interesting language.

I had absolutely no idea it existed, but now that I've read your post I'm actually a bit sad to know that it's a dead language.

[BWL]

BWL's link didn't open for me either. Here's a video where a small lesson in Ubykh is taught in French:

It's hard to make out what he says, but starting at 1:50, he talks about a few words that start with the letter q, which would make a "kha" sound, or something similar to that. "Courire" is jogging, "la tombe" is the grave, and "la parole" is speech. I can't make out the rest of what he says.

Oops, I'm not sure what's wrong but the files play on my laptop. Anyway here is a youtube clip. The narrator speaks French for the first couple of seconds but the rest is Tevfik speaking Ubykh and it DOES not sound like French! :-)