''Die Päkhy-Sprache'' (which means ''The Ubykh Language'' in German) is the title of a treatise in the

Ubykh language Ubykh is an extinct Northwest Caucasian language once spoken by the Ubykh people, an ethnic group of Circassian nation who originally inhabited the eastern coast of the Black Sea before being deported ''en masse'' to the Ottoman Empire during ...

, written by

Gyula Mészáros Gyula Mészáros (; 1883 – 1957) was a Hungarian people, Hungarian ethnographer, Oriental studies, Orientalist and Turkologist. Later in his career he became involved in a Counterfeit money, money counterfeiting scheme. Money counterfeiting In 1 ...

and published in 1934 by the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

Press. It was the first major descriptive work written in Ubykh. At the time of the treatise, the

phonological Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often prefer ...

complexities of the language were not fully understood. The transcription system used in the book was somewhat lacking, distinguishing only about 80% of Ubykh's 80-odd

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

s. Despite this shortcoming, Mészáros's account of the

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

was quite accurate. The quality and scope of the 402 page book drew much attention to this obscure language, paving the way for the further documentation of the Ubykh language by

Georges Dumézil Georges Edmond Raoul Dumézil (4 March 189811 October 1986) was a French Philology, philologist, Linguistics, linguist, and religious studies scholar who specialized in comparative linguistics and comparative mythology, mythology. He was a prof ...

, Hans Vogt and

Tevfik Esenç Tevfik Esenç (; 1904 – 7 October 1992) was a Turkish citizen of Ubykh origin, known for being the last speaker of the Ubykh language. He was fluent in Ubykh, Adyghe and Turkish. After his death in 1992, the Ubykh language went extinct desp ...

References

Linguistics books Ubykh language book-stub {{NorthwestCaucasian-lang-stub