Ubykh phonology

Ubykh, an extinct Northwest Caucasian language, has the largest consonant inventory of all documented languages that do not use clicks, and also has the most disproportional ratio of phonemic consonants to vowels. It has consonants in at least eight, perhaps nine, basic places of articulation and 29 distinct fricatives, 27 sibilants, and 20 uvulars, more than any other documented language. Some Khoisan languages, such as Taa, may have larger consonant inventories due to their extensive use of click consonants, although some analyses view a large proportion of the clicks in these languages as clusters, which would bring them closer into line with the Caucasian languages. Below is an International Phonetic Alphabet representation of the Standard Ubykh consonant inventory. Note the large number of basic series; Ubykh has basic consonants at nine places of articulation. The glottal stop [ʔ] is also noted, but only as an allophone of /qʼ/. The three postalveolar series have traditionally been called "postalveolar", "alveolo-palatal", and "retroflex", respectively, and have been transcribed with their associated symbols. The laminal and apical postalveolar series are more accurately transcribed as /ʃ̻/ and /ʃ̺/, respectively. There is no standard IPA notation for the laminal-closed postalveolar series. They are transcribed /ŝ/, etc. by Catford. The velar stops /k/ /ɡ/ /kʼ/ and the labiodental fricative /v/ are only found in Turkish and Circassian loanwords. Out of the labials, the fricatives /v/ /vʕ/ /f/ are labiodental, the others bilabial. All but four of the 84 consonants are found in native vocabulary. The plain velars /k/ /ɡ/ /kʼ/ and the voiced labiodental fricative /v/ are found mainly in loans and onomatopoeia: /ɡaarɡa/ ('crow') from Turkish karga), /kawar/ ('slat, batten') from Laz k'avari 'roofing shingle'), /makʼəf/ ('estate, legacy') from Turkish vakıf), /vər/ ('the sound of glass breaking').

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Taa language

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Labialization

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