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Many linguists, notably S. Sarostin , believe that the two groups sprang from a common ancestor about five thousand years ago. However, due to the nature of the languages in question, this proposal is difficult to evaluate, and remains controversial. COMPARISON OF THE TWO PHYLA The main perceived similarities between the two phyla lie in their phonological systems. However, their grammars are quite different. Main similarities Both phyla are characterised by high levels of Phonetic complexity, including the widespread usage of Secondary Articulation . Ubykh (Northwest) has 80 Consonant s, and Archi (Northeast) is thought to have 76. A list of possible Cognates has been proposed. However, most of them may be Loanword s or simply coincidences, since most of the Morpheme s in both phyla are quite short (often just a single consonant). Main differences The Northeast Caucasian languages are characterised by great syntactic complexity in the Noun . For example, in Tabasaran , a series of Locative Case s intersect with a series of Suffix es designating motion with regard to the location, producing an array of some 48 locative suffixes (often incorrectly described as Noun Case s). By contrast, the Northwest Caucasian noun systems are extremely poor, usually distinguishing just two or three cases. However, they make up with a very complex , the Direct Object , the Indirect Object , Benefactive objects and most local functions are expressed in the verb. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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