Chechen language

The Chechen language (Нохчийн мотт / Noxçiyn mott; Medieval Chechen: نوًچین موت) is spoken by more than 1.3 million people, mostly in Chechnya and by Chechen people elsewhere.

Classification

Chechen is one of the languages of the Caucasus. Linguistically, it is a member of the Nakh family, together with Ingush and Bats; they all belong to the Northeast Caucasian languages. Although it is frequently said that Chechen and Ingush are mutually intelligible, this is not true; rather, they generally understand each other through passive bilingualism.

Dialects

There are a number of Chechen dialects: Akkhiy, Chiantiy, Chiebarloy, Mialkhiy, Nokhchmakhkakhoy, Orstkhoy, Sharoy, Shuotoy and Terloy. The Kisti dialect of Georgia is not easily understood by northern Chechens without a few days practice. One difference in pronunciation is that Kisti aspirated consonants remain aspirated when doubled (fortis) or after /s/, whereas they lose their aspiration in other dialects in these situations.

Geographic distribution

According to the Russian Census in October 2002, 1,330,000 people reported being able to speak Chechen.

Ethnologue estimates the total number worldwide as about 955,000, based on 945,000 speakers in Russia (as per 1989 census), and the estimated speaker count in the Chechen diaspora in the Middle East countries, especially Jordan.

Official status

Chechen is an official language of Chechnya.

Sounds

Some characteristics of Chechen include its wealth of consonants and sounds similar to Arabic and the Salishan languages of Northern America and a large vowel system resembling those of Swedish and German.

Consonants

The Chechen language has, like most indigenous languages of the Caucasus, a large number of consonants: about 40 to (depending on the dialect and the analysis), more than for most languages of Europe. Typical of the region, a four-way distinction between voiced, voiceless, ejective, and geminate fortis stops is found.

	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar	Uvular	Epiglottal	Glottal
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	pʰ b pʼ pː	tʰ d tʼ tː		kʰ g kʼ xk	qʰ qʼ qː	ʢ	ʔ
Affricate		tsʰ dz tsʼ sː	tʃʰ dʒ tʃʼ
Fricative	(f)	s z	ʃ ʒ	x ʁ		ʜ	h
Rhotic		r̥ r
Approximant	w	l	j

Nearly any consonant may be fortis due to focus gemination, but only the ones above are found in roots. The consonants of the t cell and /l/ are denti-alveolar; the others of that column are alveolar. /x/ is a back velar, but not quite uvular. The phoneme /w/ is realized as [v] before front vowels. The trill /r/ is usually articulated with a single contact, and therefore sometimes described as a tap [ɾ]. Except in the literary register, and even only for some speakers, the voiced affricates /dz/, /dʒ/ have merged into the fricatives /z/, /ʒ/. /f/ is found only in European loanwords.

Except when following a consonant, /ʢ/ is phonetically [ʔˤ], and can be argued to be a glottal stop before a "pharyngealized" (actually epiglottalized) vowel. However, it does not have the distribution constraints characteristic of the anterior pharyngealized (epiglottalized) consonants. Although these may be analyzed as anterior consonant plus /ʢ/ (they surface for example as [dʢ] when voiced and [pʰʜ] when voiceless), Nichols argues that given the severe constraints against consonant clusters in Chechen, it is more useful to analyze them as single consonants.

Labial, alveolar, and postalveolar consonants may be pharyngealized.

Vowels

Unlike most other languages of the Caucasus, Chechen has an extensive inventory of vowels and diphthongs: about 27 (depending on dialect and analysis), similar in number and phonetics to the vowel systems of the Scandinavian languages and German. Many of the vowels are due to umlaut, which is highly productive in the standard dialect. None of the spelling systems used so far have distinguished the vowels with complete accuracy.

front unrounded	front rounded	back~ central
ɪ iː	y yː	ʊ uː
je ie	ɥø yø	wo uo
e̞ e̞ː	ø øː	o̞ o̞ː
æ æː		ə ɑː

All vowels may be nasalized, derived historically from a following nasal consonant.

Some of the diphthongs have significant allophony: /ɥø/ = [ɥø], [ɥe], [we]; /yø/ = [yø], [ye]; /uo/ = [woː], [uə].

In closed syllables, long vowels become short in most dialects (not Kisti), but are often still distinct from short vowels (shortened [i], [u], [ɔ], and [ɑ̤] vs. short [ɪ], [ʊ], [o], and [ə], for example), though which remain distinct depends on the dialect. /æ/, /æː/ and /e/, /eː/ are in complementary distribution (/æ/ occurs after pharyngealized consonants, whereas /e/ does not, and /æː/—identical with /æ/ for most speakers—occurs in closed syllables, while /eː/ does not) but speakers strongly feel that they are distinct sounds.

Pharyngealization appears to be a feature of the consonants, though some analyses treat it as a feature of the vowels. However, it Nichols argues that this does not capture the situation in Chechen well, whereas it is more clearly a feature of the vowel in Ingush: Chechen [tsʜaʔ] "one", Ingush [tsaʔˤ], which she analyzes as /tsˤaʔ/ and /tsaˤʔ/. Vowels have a delayed murmured onset after pharyngealized voiced consonants and a noisy aspirated onset after pharyngealized voiceless consonants. The high vowels /i/, /y/, /u/ are diphthongized, [əi], [əy], [əu], whereas the diphthongs /je/, /wo/ undergo metathesis, [ej], [ow].

Grammar

Chechen nouns belong to one of several genders or classes (6), each with a specific prefix with which the verb or an accompanying adjective agrees. However, Chechen is not a pro-drop language: subject pronouns are always used in simple sentences and the verb does not agree with the subject or object's person or number, having only tense forms and participles. Among these are an optative and an antipassive. Some verbs, however, do not take these prefixes.

Chechen is an ergative, dependent-marking language using 8 cases and a large number of postpositions to indicate the role of nouns in sentences.

Word order is consistently left-branching (like in Japanese or Turkish), so that adjectives, demonstratives and relative clauses precede the nouns they modify. Complementizers and adverbial subordinators, as in other Northeast and Northwest Caucasian languages, are suffixes rather than independent words.

Chechen also presents interesting challenges for lexicography, as creating new words in the language relies on fixation of whole phrases rather than adding to the end of existing words or combining existing words. It can be difficult to decide which phrases belong in the dictionary, because the language's grammar does not permit the borrowing of new verbal morphemes to express new concepts. Instead, the verb dan (to do) is combined with nominal phrases to correspond with new concepts imported from other languages.

Alphabets

Numerous inscriptions in the Georgian alphabet are found in Mountainous Chechnya, but they are not necessarily in Chechen. Later the Arabic alphabet was introduced for Chechen, along with Islam. It was first reformed during the reign of Imam Shamil and then in 1910, 1920 and 1922.

At the same time the alphabet devised by Peter von Uslar, consisting of Cyrillic, Latin, and Georgian letters, was used for academic purposes. In 1911 it too was reformed, but never gained popularity among the Chechens themselves.

The Latin alphabet was introduced in 1925. It was unified with Ingush in 1934, but abolished in 1938.

A a	Ä ä	B b	C c	Č č	Ch ch	Čh čh	D d
E e	F f	G g	Gh gh	H h	I i	J j	K k
Kh kh	L l	M m	N n	N̡ n̡	O o	Ö ö	P p
Ph ph	Q q	Qh qh	R r	S s	Š š	T t	Th th
U u	Ü ü	V v	X x	Ẋ ẋ	Y y	Z z	Ž ž

In 1938-1992 only Cyrillic alphabet was used for Chechen.

Cyrillic	Name	Mod. Latin	IPA
А а	а	A a	/a/
Аь аь	аь	Ä ä	/æ/
Б б	бэ	B b	/b/
В в	вэ	V v	/v/
Г г	гэ	G g	/ɡ/
ГI гI	гIа	Ġ ġ	/ɣ/
Д д	дэ	D d	/d/
Е е	е	E e	/e/
Ё ё	ё
Ж ж	жэ	Ƶ ƶ	/ʒ/ (/dz/?)
З з	зэ	Z z	/z/
И и	и	I i	/i/
Й й	доца и	Y y	/j/
К к	к	K k	/k/
Кх кх	кх	Q q	/q/
Къ къ	къа	Q̇ q̇	/q’/
КI кI	кIа	Kh kh	/k’/
Л л	лэ	L l	/l/
М м	мэ	M m	/m/
Н н	нэ	N n	/n/
О о	о	O o	/o/
Оь оь	оь	Ö ö	/ø/
П п	пэ	P p	/p/
ПI пI	пIа	Ph ph	/p’/
Р р	рэ	R r	/r/
С с	сэ	S s	/s/
Т т	тэ	T t	/t/
ТI тI	тIа	Th th	/t’/
У у	у	U u	/u/
Уь уь	уь	Ü ü	/y/
Ф ф	фэ	F f	/f/
Х х	хэ	X x	/x/
Хь хь	хьа	Ẋ ẋ	/ħ/
ХI хI	хIа	H h	/h/
Ц ц	цэ	C c	/ts/
ЦI цI	цIа	Ċ ċ	/ts’/
Ч ч	чэ	Ç ç	/tʃ/
ЧI чI	чIа	Ç̇ ç̇	/tʃ’/
Ш ш	шэ	Ş ş	/ʃ/
Щ щ	щэ
(Ъ) ъ	чIогIа хьаьрк	Ə ə	/ʔ/
(Ы) ы	ы
(Ь) ь	кIеда хьаьрк
Э э	э	E e	/e/
Ю ю	ю	yu	/ju/
Юь юь	юь	yü	/jy/
Я я	я	ya	/ja/
Яь яь	яь	yä	/jæ/
I I	Iа	J j	/j/

The glottal stop <ъ> is often omitted when writing.

In 1992 a new Latin Chechen alphabet was introduced, but after the defeat of the secessionist government, the Cyrillic alphabet was restored.

A a	Ä ä	B b	C c	Ċ ċ	Ç ç	Ç̇ ç̇	D d
E e	F f	G g	Ġ ġ	H h	X x	Ẋ ẋ	I i
J j	K k	Kh kh	L l	M m	N n	Ŋ ŋ	O o
Ö ö	P p	Ph ph	Q q	Q̇ q̇	R r	S s	Ş ş
T t	Th th	U u	Ü ü	V v	Y y	Z z	Ƶ ƶ
Ə ə

Vocabulary

There are borrowings from Russian, Turkic languages (mostly from Kumyk), Arabic, Persian, and Georgian.

History

Before the Russian conquest, most writing in Chechnya consisted of Islamic texts and clan histories, written usually in Arabic but sometimes also in Chechen using Arabic script. Those texts were largely destroyed by Soviet authorities in 1944. The Chechen literary language was created after the October Revolution, and the Latin alphabet began to be used instead of Arabic for Chechen writing in the mid-1920s. In 1938, the Cyrillic alphabet was adopted, in order to tie the nation closer to Russia. With the declaration of the Chechen republic in 1992, some Chechen speakers returned to the Latin alphabet.

The Chechen diaspora in Jordan, Turkey, and Syria is fluent but generally not literate in Chechen except for individuals who have made efforts to learn the writing system, and of course the Cyrillic alphabet is not generally known in these countries.

The use of this alphabet in Chechen is politically significant (as Russia prefers the use of the Cyrillic alphabet, against the separatists' preference for Latin).

External links

• Noxçiyn latinic denyar. Let's revive together our Chechen Latin Alphabet in Russian language.
• Rosetta Project entry for Chechen (includes word list)
• Indigenous Language of the Caucasus (Chechen), grammatical sketch of Chechen language
• The Cyrillic and Latin Chechen alphabets
• The Chechen language | Noxchiin mott Wealth of linguistic information.
• A short English-Chechen-Japanese phraselist incl. sound file
• Rferl North Caucasus Radio (also includes Avar and Adyghe)