Editing Ubykh language (section)

== Evolution ==

In the scheme of Northwest Caucasian evolution, despite its parallels with Adyghe and Abkhaz, Ubykh forms a separate third branch of the family. It has fossilised palatal class markers where all other Northwest Caucasian languages preserve traces of an original labial class: the Ubykh word for 'heart', {{IPA|/ɡʲɨ/}}, corresponds to the reflex {{IPA|/ɡʷə/}} in Abkhaz, Abaza, Adyghe, and Kabardian. Ubykh also possesses groups of pharyngealised consonants. All other NWC languages possess true pharyngeal consonants, but Ubykh is the only language to use pharyngealisation as a feature of secondary articulation.

With regard to the other languages of the family, Ubykh is closer to Adyghe and Kabardian{{Contradictory inline|article=Abkhaz language|section=Classification|date=June 2013}} but shares many features with Abkhaz due to geographic influence;<!-- how so? Ubykh was not spoken in Abkhazia --> many later Ubykh speakers were bilingual in Ubykh and Adyghe.<!-- this actually suggests that [[Abkhaz language#Classification]] is right and that it is the other way round: Bilinguality suggests geographical/areal contact influence from Adyghe, rather than Abkhaz, which wasn't spoken in the same area, after all -->

=== Dialects ===
While not many dialects of Ubykh existed, one divergent [[dialect]] of Ubykh has been noted (in Dumézil 1965:266-269). Grammatically, it is similar to standard Ubykh (i.e. [[Tevfik Esenç]]'s dialect), but has a very different sound system, which had collapsed into just 62-odd phonemes:
* {{IPA|/dʷ/ /tʷ/ /tʷʼ/}} have collapsed into {{IPA|/b/ /p/ /pʼ/}}.
* {{IPA|/ɕʷ/ /ʑʷ/}} are indistinguishable from {{IPA|/ʃʷ/ /ʒʷ/}}.
* {{IPA|/ɣ/}} seems to have disappeared.
* Pharyngealisation is no longer distinctive, having been replaced in many cases by [[geminate]] consonants.
* Palatalisation of the uvular consonants is no longer phonemic.