[lg policy] New Book: A Proposal for Pan-Caucasian Alphabet

[Armen Grigoryan]

Dear all,

Two days ago I was at the presentation of my friend's book entitled "A
Proposal for Pan-Caucasian Alphabet" by Vazgen Ghazaryan. The book is in
two languages: Armenian and Russian.

Below I am adding the synopsis of the book in English which you can find in
the attachment, too.

This alphabet can bring a solution to many endangered Caucasian languages,
so I think this might be interesting. I will put Vazgen Ghazaryan's e-mail:
 vazgen.ghazaryan at gmail.com

Best regards,
Armen Grigoryan




A Proposal for Pan-Caucasian Alphabet

The Caucasus or Jabal Al-Alsun ("Mountain of Tongues"), as it was named in
the annals of medieval Arab geographers, is one of the most prominent
places on Earth by the diversity and density of concentration of languages.
The region is home to more than 50 nations, which belong to five language
families. The three of those, namely, the Northwest Caucasian
(West-Caucasian or Abkhaz-Adyghean), Northeast Caucasian (East Caucasian or
Nakh-Dagestanian) and South Caucasian (Kartvelian) families are confined
within the limits of the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Mountain Ranges and
currently comprise 41 languages considered native to the region for at
least four thousand years.

 Located amidst the sphere of distribution, contiguity and mutual influence
of the Indo-European, Altaic and Semitic language families, the Caucasus,
presumably due to the peculiarities of the landform and relative isolation
of mountainous regions, was able to preserve a certain degree of
representativeness and sufficient diversity of the three autochthonous
language families, preventing their extinction or reduction to a language
isolate.

 Nevertheless, the historical and political realities, established in the
region during the latest 200 years, gravely threaten the means of
development of these languages and even their future existence. For
instance, from the mid-19th century the majority of native speakers of the
NWC languages settled beyond the limits of the Caucasus, being almost
completely deported in consequence of imperial expansion. As a result, this
once multilingual family that was widely and homogeneously spread all over
the Western Caucasus, has presently diminished to a few isolated enclaves
with a shrinking population. The situation is somewhat different in the
Eastern Caucasus, but there also a number of NEC languages presently count
a few thousand of even a few hundred speakers, and being enclosed within
one or a few villages, are reduced to a definitely or severely endangered
state.

 The uncertainty of the future of those North Caucasian languages (NWC and
NEC together), which are endangered or under an imminent threat of
extinction, is not only stipulated by the historical, cultural, political
and confessional realities of the Cau­casus, but also by the absence of one
of the most essential components that shape the identity of ethnic
communities – a centuries-old written tradition and heritage, that places
these generally small groups into a vulnerable position against cultural
and especially political and religious expansion.

 Among the languages of three native families of the Caucasus, Georgian is
the only one to have an uninterrupted centuries-old written tradition,
which originated, by the prevailing opinion, in the 5th century by virtue
of the invention of an authentic alphabet. From other Caucasian languages,
the presently extinct language of Caucasian Albania – the so-called
"Caucasian Albanian" or "Aluanian", "Aghuan", "Aghvan", which belongs to
the Lezgic branch of NEC languages and is considered to be the direct
ancestor of modern Udi, have had an original written tradition and
literature (at least in translation). During the Middle Ages – in the
period of the spread of Islam, an attempt has been made to adapt a modified
version of the Arabic script to some NEC languages. However, due to various
reasons it did not turn fully successful in this linguistic area and the
Arabic script gained limited use.

 Standardized writing systems for the North Caucasian languages have been
implemented only in the 20th century. Initially based upon the Latin
script, the adapted alphabets have been shifted to Cyrillic-shaped graphics
during the mid 30s. Unfortunately, both versions do not match in practice
with the phonetics of the Caucasian languages since these writing systems
originated or have been modified to express totally unalike phonetic
structures of the source languages. They are extremely deficient for the
purposes they were intended for, and present serious difficulties not only
for graphical harmony and aesthetics of composition, but also for their
practical application and functionality. More specifically, the limited
number of characters and their insufficient flexibility in graphical
modifications make these writing systems incapable to represent, in an
unambiguous way, the phonetics of the North Caucasian languages, which in
their turn possess an outstanding feature of having one of the richest
consonant inventories among all the languages of the world.

 For instance, the language of the Ubykhs (extinct since 1992) has 86
consonants and two vowels; the Archi language, presently reduced to 1200
speakers, distinguishes 81 consonants and 26 vowels (many of the former do
not have exact correspondences in other languages); the consonant inventory
of the Bzyp dialect of Abkhaz includes 68 phonemes, etc.

 All Caucasian languages have a regular three-level phonation for stops and
affricates (voiced, ejective and aspirated voiceless), whereas the Cyrillic
script distinguishes only two levels of phonation (voiced and unaspirated
voiceless) in case of stops and one (aspirated voiceless) in case of
affricates. The Latin alphabet does not represent affricates at all.
However, if the Latin alphabet, with all its drawbacks, acquired a more or
less conventional set of auxiliary signs and supplementary characters due
to a wide usage among a vast number of languages during two millennia, the
Cyrillic script until the 20th century has chiefly been confined to a
limited range of a few Slavic languages sharing similar phonetic traits.
And, since writing systems containing nearly 30 graphemes are essentially
unfit for full phonemic rendition with simultaneous preservation of the
alphabetic principle (i.e. one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and
phonemes) in case of languages possessing 50 phonemes in average,
dissimilar sets of symbols often with illogical combinations were
introduced into the alphabets of particular North Caucasian languages
during the adaptation of the Russian script.

 Another important reason why these adaptations fail to be consistent is
that this script has evolved in the environment of Russian language and
therefore is specifically intended to express its pronunciation
peculiarities alone. It possesses only two means of alteration of
articulation – palatalization, expressed by the sign ь, and
depalatalization, which is mostly omitted in current orthography, but if
necessary, can be marked by the sign ъ. Meanwhile, the North Caucasian
languages feature four different types of coarticulation – labialization,
palatalization, pharyngealization and labiopharyngealization. Among these
only the palatalization can regularly be expressed using the Russian
script. As a result, the other specifics of articulation are either
expressed by graphemes, which in their turn have individual phonetic values
(such as the use of the letters в /v/ and у /u/ to mark the labialization
in most Caucasian languages), or totally omitted in the script.

 For instance, the series of Ubykh postalveolar affricates and fricatives
numbers 22 distinct phonemes, for which there is only one (!)
correspondence in the Cyrillic script – the letter ч (tɕ). Obviously, this
one sign alone is quite insufficient to express the overall phonemic
diversity of this extensive series by means of Cyrillic graphics. Set aside
the letter х, there is no other direct or indirect graphical correspondence
for uvular, pharyngeal, epiglottal and glottal stops, affricates,
fricatives and sonorants, which in Caucasian languages abound.

 As one can see, the quantity of phonemes of these languages by far exceeds
the graphical capabilities of all alphabetic systems that have previously
been proposed for them or are currently in use. Such a vast phoneme
inventory significantly hinders the possibilities of adaptation of any
actual script and constitutes the prime reason for the current project.

So, it becomes evident that the structural deficiency of the Latin and
Cyrillic writing systems in regard to their adaptation to the North
Caucasian languages had to cause unnecessary functional complications in
expressing these languages by means of the adapted alphabets.

 This can clearly be noticed from the practice of overuse of constrained
di-, tri-, tetra- and pentagraphs (ххьIв, кIкIв, чIчIв, ххьI, ллъв, гъIв,
кхъу, ккв, ххв, къь, гъу, хъу, кIу, жъу etc.), which not only greatly
confuse the orthography, but also undermine the very base of the alphabetic
principal – the systematic and predictable relationship between written
letters, symbols and spoken words.

Note, that a moderate number of di- and trigraphs does not raise many
difficulties for the practical use of a particular writing system. In
German, for instance, there is one trigraph (sch) and even one tetragraph
(tsch), both of which do not perplex the perception of a written text.

 However, a certain limit exists that, if passed, may lead to a serious
distortion or even a violation of the alphabetic principle. This is the
case in almost all North Caucasian Cyrillic alphabets, where the quantity
of compound combinations often exceeds 50% of the total letter inventory.
For example, 24 out of 69 characters of Adyghe alphabet are double, and 11
– triple, making in sum 35 compounds, which is more than half of the total
listing with 69:35 ratio. The similar statistics of the other Caucasian
Cyrillic alphabets is as follows: Abaza (74:40), Kabardian (55:25), Abkhaz
(64:24), Akhvakh (56:30), Aghul (69:32), Avar (53:37), Lak (59:25),
Tabasaran (59:25), Tsez (40:14), Chechen (45:16) etc. The Chechen alphabet
alone having merely 45 characters in the presence of 44 authentic vowels
and diphthongs in the language itself, clearly convinces one in the fact
that even at the cost of universal violation of the alphabetic principle
and inappropriate complication of orthography, the given alphabets are
unable to express the phonemic structure of the Caucasian languages even in
the least satisfactory manner.

 Hence, it is no surprise that the superposition of the Russian script over
the Caucasian languages resulted in a number of grammatological
discrepancies. One can also add that during the adaptation procedure an
essentially substandard approach was shown in choosing the characters and
their combinations that fails to represent in a similar way the
orthographies of even closely related languages. The inconsistent
differences are such that a few years ago a proposal to unify the
orthographies of two literary versions of Circassian – Adyghe and
Kabardian, was presented. The Parliament of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic
discussed the issue, but with no progress whatsoever.

All above-mentioned complications essentially limited the means of
graphical expression of these languages and led to a point, where, set
aside rare dialectal phonemes, a series of sounds of literary languages
were omitted in a number of alphabets. In many cases, these very same
circumstances also defined the selection of dialects upon which the
literary versions of some Caucasian languages were subsequently based:
neither the extent of geographical distribution, nor the greater number of
speakers was the decision criterion, but the minimal consonant inventory.

 In summary, we may conclude that presently for the languages of both North
Caucasian families there are practically no alphabets with a satisfactory
level of phonematicity. Moreover, in Cyrillic script we deal with a quite
inconsistent system of symbols, the potential of which in respect of
grapheme morphology and structural correspondences is extremely low and
insufficient not only for a simple, practical and phonemically complete
rendition of the North Caucasian languages, but also for their aesthetic
graphical representation.

 The latter is of paramount importance for psychology of writing and
determines the representativeness and competitiveness of an authentic
language under the dominance of another – an official language with an
identical writing system. This can be exemplified in an Adyghe text that
looks as follows:

 УблапІэм щегъэжьагъэу а ГущыІэр Тхьэм ыдэжь щыІагъ. Тхьэм а ГущыІэм
зэкІэри къыригъэгъэхъугъ... Тхьэм къыгъэхъугъэ пстэуми ащыщэу а ГущыІэм
къыримыгъгъэхъугъэ зи щыІэп.

 There is no need to prove the obvious – that a similar graphic portrayal
of a language can never assist its literary development.

 Besides the imperfection of the writing system or even its absence, the
official status and the cultural dominance of Russian has a no less
considerable impact on the marginalization of the spheres of usage of the
native Caucasian languages, promoting their gradual extinction. A large
number of languages, among which were examples unique by their grammatical
and phonetic properties, either completely died out or are on the brink of
extinction being reduced to a few hundred or thousand of speakers, such as
Archi, Akhvakh, Khinalug, Khwarshi, Tsez, Hinukh, Hunzib, Bezhta,
Ghodoberi, Kryts, Budukh, Udi and many others.

 Granting these languages a new impetus and means for development may be a
possible break through the mentioned difficulties. To achieve this goal we
suggest a scientifically valid development of completely new and
well-adapted Caucasian alphabets that are adjusted by the morphology of
symbols and the logic of their modification. At the same time, they must
correspond to the complex intrinsic phonetic features of these languages,
render them with full phonemic representativeness and alphabetical
unambiguity, and at the same time be free from any irrelevant political or
cultural context and enforcing influence.

 The best illustrations to the aforesaid are the 1600-year time-tested
alphabets of once dominant languages of the South Caucasus and the Armenian
Highlands – Armenian, Georgian and the extinct and only recently deciphered
Caucasian Albanian. Among the writing systems of the world, these three
alphabets are distinguished by their highest level of grapheme-to-phoneme
correspondence and are listed among the phonetically most perfect.
Caucasian Albanian, inter alia, was the only language of the South Caucasus
possessing phonetic features similar to the North Caucasian languages and
an ancient alphabet adapted to it.

 Throughout the centuries, the viability of the Armenian and Georgian
alphabets, alongside with the power of tradition and some peculiarities of
the identity of these two nations, was supported by the fundamental fact:
they reflect the phonetics of these languages with the highest level of
perfection. These alphabets were never superseded by the Greek, Aramaic,
Arabic, Russian or Latin scripts, as they weren't adopted or modified, but
from the beginning developed on the basis of a meticulous scientific
analysis of the phonetics of Armenian and Georgian (as well as Caucasian
Albanian).

 In their triunity, these remarkable examples of cultural heritage of the
contemporary Caucasian region once unified the three nation-states of the
South Caucasus and the Armenian Highlands in a common but mutually
independent and unique writing tradition. The current project is an attempt
to restore former triunity, which has been interrupted after one of its
essential parts – the Caucasian Albanian alphabet became obsolete and fell
into oblivion.

Hence, we set forth the idea to introduce completely original, easily
legible, and most importantly – phonetically perfect and grammatologically
thorough writing systems for the North Caucasian linguistic area, based on
the character forms and graphical principles of construction of the
alphabets of geographically adjacent and historically akin South Caucasus.

 If formulated properly, this problem, however complicated it may seem,
does not cause principal difficulties. With an appropriate political will
and flexible approach, it might have had a satisfactory solution as early
as in the beginning of the 20th century.

 Thus, pooling together the available scientific research on the Caucasian
phonology and summarizing the general pattern of the overall phonetic
diversity of these families within single terminology, we have constructed
phonetically complete featural alphabets, based on a peculiar usage of the
morphological principles of construction of millennial South Caucasian
alphabets.

 For this purpose the whole grammatological and constructive potential of
these writing systems was revealed and analyzed, and, based on their
generalized grapheme matrix, a solid and thoroughly arranged regular system
of characters was proposed. It has exceptional properties for precise and
alphabetically unequivocal rendition of all phonetic peculiarities of the
North Caucasian languages possessing the largest consonant inventory among
all the languages of the world. The set of distinct rules for grapheme
formation enables one to remember a large number of visual forms with no
difficulty whatsoever.

 To achieve maximum efficiency, two similar, but mutually independent
generalized sets of characters for NWC and NEC language families are
introduced, wherefrom the specific alphabets for the particular languages
are subsequently deduced.

 Additionally, for the Ossetic language alike, which is an integral part of
the Caucasian heritage, an independent alphabet sharing the features of
both the newly developed North Caucasian and the ancient Transcaucasian
alphabets has been created.

 Thus, we attempt to give a new and historically sound unity and continuity
to the millennial writing culture of the Caucasian region, a new impulse to
the development of greater speech communities, as well as viability for
preservation and future revival to smaller ones currently on the verge of
extinction. Unlike all previous attempts, the developed featural alphabets
are not adopted, and they do not copy the writing of any linguo-cultural,
religious or political order directly or indirectly reducing to a secondary
position the original and unique Caucasian languages.

 They are aimed to renew and reinterpret the distinct historical,
linguistic, cultural and philosophical heritage of the South and North
Caucasus in a united and coherent Caucasian context.



The specific alphabets, derived to fit the phonetics of particular
Caucasian languages, can be found in the book, published in Armenian and
Russian languages:

Վազգեն Ղազարյան, Համակովկասյան այբուբենի նախագիծ.

Вазген Казарян. Проект общекавказского алфавита.

Vazgen Ghazaryan. A Proposal for Pan-Caucasian Alphabet. Yerevan, 2012,
ISBN 978-9939-0-0603-1.
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