 Tense consonants are characterized by the intensiveness of articulation, which naturally leads to a lengthening of these consonants.In contrast to the generally large consonant inventories of Northeast Caucasian languages, most languages in the family have relatively few vowels, although more on average than the Northwest Caucasian Languages.However, there are some exceptions to this trend, such as Chechen, which has at least twenty-eight vowels, diphthongs, and triphthongs.