Updated PCA analysis of various languages

[DonaldFisk]

Donald, this is most interesting! Having not heard of Abkhaz, I looked at the Wikipedia page on the Abkhaz language You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . This has an example text, the romanisation of which is given as:

Darbanzaalak auaɥy dshoup ihy daqwithny. Auaa zegj zinlei patulei eiqaroup. Urth irymoup ahshyɥi alamysi, dara daragj aesjei aesjei reiphsh eizyqazaroup.

I perked up when I saw the repeated words "aesjei aesjei" in the second sentence - reminiscent of repeating words in the VMS Moreover, the "dara daragj" word sequence with the same stem looks oddly familiar. 

But this language is not old enough, is it?

This, and the text I analysed, are modern Abkhaz.   The problem is that as far as we know, 15th century Abkhaz was never recorded.   The earliest recorded Abkhaz was made in the early 17th century by a Turkish traveller called Mehmed Zilli (Evliya Çelebi).   You can find it at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..   Some of the phrases he recorded are vulgar.   Different languages change at different rates but the Abkhaz he recorded is, I think, recognizably similar to that of today, though you have to bear in mind that Turkish might have changed over the last 400 years (though that will be better documented).   Other related languages are as deficient in vowels and rich in consonants as Abkhaz, and they might be worth checking too.