Chechen | ||
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Нохчийн мотт Noxçiyn mott |
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Spoken in | ||
Region | Republic of Chechnya | |
Total speakers | circa 1,500,000 self-reported speakers worldwide (2009) | |
Language family | Northeast Caucasian
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Writing system | Cyrillic alphabet, Latin alphabet | |
Official status | ||
Official language in | Chechnya | |
Regulated by | No official regulation | |
Language codes | ||
ISO 639-1 | ce | |
ISO 639-2 | che | |
ISO 639-3 | che | |
Linguasphere | ||
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. |
The Chechen language (Нохчийн мотт / Noxçiyn mott; Medieval Chechen: نوًچین موت) is spoken by more than 1.5 million people, mostly in Chechnya and by Chechen people elsewhere. It is a member of the Northeast Caucasian languages.
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Chechen is an ergative-agglutinative language. Linguistically, it is, together with Ingush and Bats, a member of the Nakh branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family.
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.
According to the Russian Census in October 2002, 1,330,000 people reported being able to speak Chechen.
Chechen is an official language of Chechnya[1] and Dagestan.[2]
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.
The Chechen language has, like most indigenous languages of the Caucasus, a large number of consonants: about 40 to 60 (depending on the dialect and the analysis), far more than in most European languages. 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 | |
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Nasal | m | n | |||||
Plosive | pʰ b pʼ pː |
tʰ d tʼ tː |
kʰ ɡ kʼ xk |
qʰ qʼ qː |
ʢ | ʔ | |
Affricate | tsʰ dz tsʼ sː |
tʃʰ dʒ tʃʼ |
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Fricative | (f v) | s z | ʃ ʒ | x ʁ | ʜ | h | |
Rhotic | r̥ r | ||||||
Approximant | w | l | j |
Nearly any consonant may be fortis because of 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 lateral /l/ may be velarized, unless it's followed by a front vowel. 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 then only for some speakers, the voiced affricates /dz/, /dʒ/ have merged into the fricatives /z/, /ʒ/. /f/ is found only in European loanwords. /w/ appears both in diphthongs and as a consonant; as a consonant, it has an allophone [v] before front vowels.
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 an 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.
The approximately twenty pharyngealized consonants do not appear in the table above. Labial, alveolar, and postalveolar consonants may be pharyngealized, except for ejectives. Pharyngealized consonants do not occur in verbs or adjectives, and in nouns and adverbs they occur predominantly before the low vowels /a, aː/ ([ə, ɑː]).
Unlike most other languages of the Caucasus, Chechen has an extensive inventory of vowels, about 44 (depending on dialect and analysis), more than most languages of Europe. 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 |
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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. Nasalization is imposed by the genitive, infinitive, and for some speakers the nominative case of adjectives. Nasalization is not strong, but it is audible even in final vowels, which are devoiced.
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, 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].
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:[3] 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.[4]
Chechen is an ergative, dependent-marking language using eight cases (nominative, genitive, dative, ergative, instrumental, substantive, comparative, and locative) 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 in 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.[5] Instead, the verb dan (to do) is combined with nominal phrases to correspond with new concepts imported from other languages.
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 | Ņ ņ | 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 the Cyrillic alphabet was used for Chechen.
Cyrillic | Name | Mod. Latin | Name | IPA |
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А а | а | A a | a | /ə/, /ɑː/ |
Аь аь | аь | Ä ä | ä | /æ/, /æː/ |
Б б | бэ | B b | be | /b/ |
В в | вэ | V v | ve | /v/ |
Г г | гэ | G g | ge | /ɡ/ |
ГI гI | гIа | Ġ ġ | ġa | /ɣ/ |
Д д | дэ | D d | de | /d/ |
Е е | е | E e | e | /e/, /ɛː/, /je/, /ie/ |
Ё ё | ё | yo | /jo/ etc. | |
Ж ж | жэ | Ƶ ƶ | ƶe | /ʒ/, /dʒ/ |
З з | зэ | Z z | ze | /z/, /dz/ |
И и | и | I i | i | /ɪ/ |
Ий ий | Ii ii | /iː/ | ||
Й й (я, ю, е) |
доца и | Y y | doca i | /j/ |
К к | к | K k | ka | /k/ |
Ккх ккх | Kk kk | /kː/ | ||
Кх кх | кх | Q q | qa | /q/ |
Кхкх кхкх | Qq qq | /qː/ | ||
Къ къ | къа | Q̇ q̇ | q̇a | /qʼ/ |
КI кI | кIа | Kh kh | kha | /kʼ/ |
Л л | лэ | L l | el | /l/ |
М м | мэ | M m | em | /m/ |
Н н | нэ | N n | en | /n/ |
О о | о | O o | o | /o/, /ɔː/, /wo/, /uo/ |
Оь оь | оь | Ö ö | ö | /ɥø/, /yø/ |
П п | пэ | P p | pe | /p/ |
Пп пп | Pp pp | /pː/ | ||
ПI пI | пIа | Ph ph | pha | /pʼ/ |
Р р | рэ | R r | er | /r/ |
РхI рхI | Rh rh | /r̥/ | ||
С с | сэ | S s | es | /s/ |
Сс сс | Ss ss | /sː/ | ||
Т т | тэ | T t | te | /t/ |
Тт тт | Tt tt | /tː/ | ||
ТI тI | тIа | Th th | tha | /tʼ/ |
У у | у | U u | u | /uʊ/ |
Ув ув | Uu uu | /uː/ | ||
Уь уь | уь | Ü ü | ü | /y/ |
Ф ф | фэ | F f | ef | /f/ |
Х х | хэ | X x | xa | /x/ |
Хь хь | хьа | Ẋ ẋ | ẋa | /ʜ/ |
ХI хI | хIа | H h | ha | /h/ |
Ц ц | цэ | C c | ce | /ts/ |
ЦI цI | цIа | Ċ ċ | ċe | /tsʼ/ |
Ч ч | чэ | Ç ç | çe | /tʃ/ |
ЧI чI | чIа | Ç̇ ç̇ | ç̇e | /tʃʼ/ |
Ш ш | шэ | Ş ş | şa | /ʃ/ |
Щ щ | щэ | |||
(Ъ) ъ | чIогIа хьаьрк | Ə ə | ç̇oġa ẋärk | /ʔ/ |
(Ы) ы | ы | |||
(Ь) ь | кIеда хьаьрк | |||
Э э | э | E e | e | /e/ etc. |
Ю ю | ю | yu | /ju/ etc. | |
Юь юь | юь | yü | /jy/ etc. | |
Я я | я | ya | /ja/ etc. | |
Яь яь | яь | yä | /jæ/ etc. | |
I I | Iа | J j | ja | /ʡ/, /ˤ/ |
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 |
There are borrowings from Russian, Turkic languages (mostly from Kumyk), Arabic, Persian.
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 choice of alphabet in Chechen is politically significant (as Russia prefers the use of the Cyrillic alphabet, against the separatists' preference for Latin).
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