Adyghe (Адыгэ)
Spoken in:	Russia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Macedonia, Syria, Turkey
Region:	Russia: Adygea Republic
Total speakers:	300,000
Ranking:	Not in top 100
Genetic classification:	Caucasian (disputed)  North Caucasian (disputed)   Northwest Caucasian    Circassian     Adyghe
Official status
Official language of:	Adygea (autonomous republic of Russia)
Regulated by:	-
Language codes
ISO 639-1	-
ISO 639-2	cau
SIL	ADY

Adyghe (Адыгэ) is a language of the Republic of Adygeya in the Russian Federation. The language is referred to by its speakers as Adyghadze or Adyghabza, and alternatively spelled in English as Adygean, Adygeyan or Adygei.

There are apparently around 125,000 speakers of the language in Russia, almost all of them mother-tongue speakers. In the whole world, some 300,000 speak the language. The largest Adyghe-speaking community lives in Turkey.

It belongs to the Northwest Caucasian languages, and is closely related to the Kabardian language. The Abkhaz and Abaza languages are also close relatives thereof.

Adyghe has a subject-object-verb typology.

The language was standardized after the October Revolution. Since 1938, Adyghe has used the Cyrillic alphabet. Before that, an Arabic-based alphabet was used together with the Latin.

It has official status, along with Russian, in the Republic of Adygeya.

External links

• Adyghe Sample at Language Museum (http://www.language-museum.com/a/adyghe.php)
• Ethnologue: Adyghe (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ADY)

ja:アディゲ語 nl:Adyghe (taal)