Chechen ( / ˈ tʃ ɛ tʃ ɛ n / CHETCH -en , / tʃ ə ˈ tʃ ɛ n / chə- CHEN ; Нохчийн мотт , Noxçiyn mott , [ˈnɔxt͡ʃĩː muɔt] ) is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by approximately 1.8 million people, mostly in the Chechen Republic and by members of the Chechen diaspora throughout Russia and the rest of Europe , Jordan , Austria , Turkey , Azerbaijan , Ukraine , Central Asia (mainly Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan ) and Georgia .
52-557: Aukh ( Chechen : Ӏовх, Ӏавх, 'Ovkh, Ӏовхойн мохк; Russian : Ау́х) is a historical region in the current republic of Dagestan , populated by Chechens . Aukh encompasses parts of the Novolak , Khasavyurtovsky , Babayurtovsky and Kazbekovsky districts. The Chechens of Dagestan call themselves Aukhs ( ӏовхой ), and speak the Aukh dialect of the Chechen language. The territories where
104-464: 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
156-403: A consonant; as a consonant, it has an allophone [ v ] before front vowels. Approximately twenty pharyngealized consonants (marked with superscript ˤ ) also appear in the table above. Labial , alveolar and postalveolar consonants may be pharyngealized, except for ejectives . Except when following a consonant, / ʢ / is phonetically [ ʔˤ ] , and can be argued to be
208-562: A destroyed and no longer existent historical treasury of writings. 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. The Cyrillic alphabet is not generally known in these countries, and thus for Jordan and Syria, they most use the Arabic alphabet, while in Turkey they use
260-543: 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
312-404: A great final step in creating a modified Arabic script that represents Chechen consonants. However, the Arabic alphabet still was not suitable in representing Chechen vowel sounds. Arabic script itself is an impure abjad , meaning that most but not all vowels are shown with diacritics , which are in most cases left unwritten. The process of transforming Arabic script into a full alphabet for use by
364-626: 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 affixes rather than independent words. Chechen also presents interesting challenges for lexicography , as creating new words in
416-563: A non-Arabic language has been a common occurrence, and has been done in Uyghur , Kazakh , Kurdish and several more Arabic-derived scripts. Thus a final revision on Chechen Arabic script occurred, in which vowel sounds were standardized. Table below lists the 41 letters of the final iteration of Chechen Arabic Alphabet, as published by Chechen Authorities at the time, prior to 1925, their IPA values, and their Cyrillic equivalents. The single letters and digraphs that count as separate letters of
468-617: A result of long-distance assimilation between vowel sounds. Additionally, the Himoy dialect preserves word-final, post-tonic vowels as a schwa [ə]. Literary Chechen is based on Plains Chechen, spoken around Grozny and Urus-Martan . According to the Russian Census of 2020 , 1,490,000 people reported being able to speak Chechen in Russia. Chechen is an official language of Chechnya . Chechens in Jordan have good relations with
520-454: A specific prefix with which the verb or an accompanying adjective agrees. The verb does not agree with 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 eight cases ( absolutive , genitive , dative , ergative , allative , instrumental , locative and comparative ) and
572-498: A vowel use when needed to avoid confusions. This modification did not persist in Chechen Alphabet. otherwise, the 1910 iteration of the Arabic script continued being used until 1920. In 1920, two Chechen literaturists, A. Tugaev and T. Eldarkhanov, published a document. In this document they proposed new modifications, which were the addition of two new consonants: These modifications by A. Tugaev and T. Eldarkhanov were
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#1732772095193624-497: Is 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 / . A voiceless labial fricative / f / is found only in European loanwords . / w / appears both in diphthongs and as
676-464: Is found in handwriting. Usually, palochka uppercase and lowercase forms consistent in print or upright, but only upper-case ⟨Ӏ⟩ is normally used in computers. In 1992, with the de facto secession of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria from Russia, a new Latin Chechen alphabet was introduced and used in parallel with the Cyrillic alphabet. This was the second time a Latin-based orthography
728-421: Is found. Furthermore, all variants except the ejective are subject to phonemic pharyngealization. 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
780-472: Is more useful to analyze them as single consonants. Unlike most other languages of the Caucasus, Chechen has an extensive inventory of vowel sounds, putting its range higher than most languages of Europe (most vowels being the product of environmentally conditioned allophonic variation, which varies by both dialect and method of analysis). Many of the vowels are due to umlaut , which is highly productive in
832-647: Is the Cyrillic alphabet. This script was created and adopted in 1938, replacing the Latin script prior to it. Up until 1992, only the Cyrillic script was used for Chechen. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the de facto secession of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria from Russia, a new Latin script was devised and was used parallel to Cyrillic until the dissolution of the separatist state . Modern alphabet: Lower-case palochka , ⟨ӏ⟩ ,
884-582: The Arabic script was introduced for Chechen, along with Islam . The Chechen Arabic alphabet was first reformed during the reign of Imam Shamil , and then again 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 current official script for Chechen language
936-698: The Caucasian Imamate . In another report from 1857 Aukh under Naib Hatu had in total 530 warriors of which 200 were cavalry and 330 infantry. Another famous Naib of Aukh was Bashir-Sheikh from Endirey who belonged to the famous Chechen-Kumyk nobility called Sala-Uzden. In 1921, Aukh was included in the Dagestan ASSR , despite the desire of Aukhs to join the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic . According to another explanation,
988-505: The Salishan languages of North America, as well as 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 most European languages . Typical of the region, a four-way distinction between voiced , voiceless , ejective and geminate fortis stops
1040-499: The diphthongs /je/, /wo/ undergo metathesis , [ej], [ow] . Chechen permits syllable-initial clusters /st px tx/ and non-initially also allows /x r l/ plus any consonant, and any obstruent plus a uvular of the same manner of articulation . The only cluster of three consonants permitted is /rst/ . Numerous inscriptions in the Georgian script are found in mountainous Chechnya, but they are not necessarily in Chechen. Later,
1092-399: The Arabic script was well established among the speakers of Chechen. However, the Arabic alphabet, without modifications, would not be suitable for Chechen, and modifications would be needed. The Arabic alphabet underwent various iterations, improvements and modifications for the Chechen language. Within Chechen society, these modifications were not without controversy. The Muslim clergy and
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#17327720951931144-598: The Aukhs formed their national Aukhs district (the territory of the modern Novolaksky and part of the Kazbekovsky regions) with the center in Yaryksu-Aukh (modern Novokuli). But at the end of February 1944, the Aukhs, sharing a similar fate with other Vainakhs , were ethnically cleansed from their homeland. The authorities disbanded the Aukh district , giving the land of Aukhs to other ethnic groups of Dagestan. In
1196-618: The Chechen Republic. The dialects of the northern lowlands are often referred to as " Oharoy muott " (literally "lowlander's language") and the dialect of the southern mountain tribes is known as " Laamaroy muott " (lit. "mountainer's language"). Oharoy muott forms the basis for much of the standard and literary Chechen language, which can largely be traced to the regional dialects of Urus-Martan and contemporary Grozny . Laamaroy dialects include Chebarloish, Sharoish, Itum-Qalish, Kisti, and Himoish. Until recently, however, Himoy
1248-664: The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and are able to practice their own culture and language. Chechen language usage is strong among the Chechen community in Jordan. Jordanian Chechens are bilingual in both Chechen and Arabic, but do not speak Arabic among themselves, only speaking Chechen to other Chechens. Some Jordanians are literate in Chechen as well, having managed to read and write to people visiting Jordan from Chechnya. Some phonological characteristics of Chechen include its wealth of consonants and sounds similar to Arabic and
1300-534: The Latin alphabet. Chechen is the most-spoken Northeast Caucasian language . Together with the closely related Ingush , with which there exists a large degree of mutual intelligibility and shared vocabulary, it forms the Vainakh branch . There are a number of Chechen dialects: Aukh , Chebarloish, Malkhish, Nokhchmakhkakhoish, Orstkhoish, Sharoish, Shuotoish, Terloish, Itum-Qalish and Himoish. Dialects of Chechen can be classified by their geographic position within
1352-581: The Nakh clans settled were inhabited in ancient times by the Vainakh tribe "Авхар". Therefore, the modern teips were not the first Chechens to master these lands. Aukh has historically been inhabited by Chechen tribes and were mentioned by several sources of the time as Okoki, Gueni, and others. Aukh was transferred to Dagestan in 1921. Aukh was very mixed with a lot of different Chechen and Ingush teips from all areas of Chechnya and Ingushetia , due to this
1404-530: The North Caucasus, allying itself with the Russian Tsardom instead. The Prince Shikh Okotsky commanded at some point a host of 500 Cossacks and 500 Chechens ( Aukhs ), although the 500 Aukhs were part of a larger immobilized Chechen force of 1,000 infantry and 100 mounted cavalry. In the year 1583 Shikh Murza's joint Chechen-Cossack force would attack an Ottoman force traveling from Derbent to
1456-745: The Sea of Azov to the aid of the Crimean Khanate, the Ottoman force took significant damage which hampered their transit from Derbent to the Sea of Azov. In the 19th century, Aukh was incorporated into the Caucasian Imamate as one of many Chechen Naibstvos (Administrative unit of the Caucasian Imamate). In 1843 the Aukh Naib district was one of the most important Naibstva, it had up to 1,500 families and could equally supply 1,500 soldiers to
1508-544: The alphabet, along with their correspondences, are as follows. Those in parentheses are optional or only found in Russian words: In addition, several sequences of letters for long vowels and consonants, while not counted as separate letters in their own right, are presented here to clarify their correspondences: Chechen is an agglutinative language with an ergative–absolutive morphosyntactic alignment . Chechen nouns belong to one of several genders or classes (6), each with
1560-407: 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
1612-551: The ethnically cleansed Chechens, were given to Laks free of charge. The villages Shircha-Aukh (Kalininaul) and Aukh-Aktash (Leninaul) were transferred to the Kazbekovski District and the property there was given to Avars . In 1956, Chechens began to return to their historical homeland, widespread ethnic conflict ensued. With the permission of the authorities of the Soviet Dagestan , on October 5, 1943,
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1664-573: 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. Chechen nouns are divided into six lexically arbitrary noun classes . Morphologically, noun classes may be indexed by changes in
1716-581: The letters ص ( ṣād/sād ) and ض ( zād/ḍād ) had their usage limited to Arabic loanwords but were not eliminated due to opposition from Clergy and conservative segments of Chechen society. In another short-lasting modification, Sugaip Gaisunov proposed adding a overline (◌ٙ) ( U+0659 ) over letters that can be read as either a consonant or a vowel, namely the letters و ( waw ) (equivalent to Cyrillic letter "В" or to letters "О, Оь, У, Уь") and ی ( yāʼ ) (equivalent to Cyrillic letter "Й" or to letter "И"). The overbar signified
1768-578: The local party leadership began to turn the Avars and Laks against the Aukhs. On July 3, 1989, a rally was organized demanding the renewed cleansing of Aukhs from Dagestan. Chechen language Before the Russian conquest , most writings in Chechnya consisted of Islamic texts and clan histories, written usually in Arabic but sometimes also in Chechen using Arabic script. The Chechen literary language
1820-644: The modifications in Chechen were done independently from these two nearby and influential literary traditions and were focused on needs of Chechen language. Initially, the Chechen Arabic alphabet looked like this. ي ﻻ ه و ن م ل ڮ ك ڨ ق ف غ ع ظ ط ض ص ش س ز ر ذ د خ ح ج ث ت ب ا In this alphabet, two additional letters were added to the base Arabic script: In 1910, Sugaip Gaisunov proposed additional reforms that brought Arabic alphabet closer to Chechen's phonetic requirements. Sugaip Gaisunov introduced four additional consonants: In Sugaip Gaisunov's reforms,
1872-493: The more conservative segments of Chechen society initially resisted any changes to the Arabic script, with the belief that this script was sacred due to its association with Islam, and was not to be changed. The clergy and Islamic educational institutions opposed each and every iteration of proposed reforms in the Arabic script. While modifications to the Arabic script to match local languages had been common practice for centuries, for languages such as Persian and Ottoman Turkish ,
1924-465: The peaceful nature of their action. The leadership of the Soviet Dagestan was confused and declared these actions “riots”, although no repressive measures were taken against the participants in the events then. Once again, Aukhs tried to return to their homes in 1976 and 1985 in the village of Chapaevo ( Chech . Keshen-Evla), and in 1989 in many native Aukh villages. In response to these actions,
1976-479: The period from 1957 to 1960, the majority of Aukhs returned to the Soviet Dagestan , however, the leadership of the republic forbade them to resettle the land of their ancestors, especially in the Novolaksky and Kazbekovsky districts (only a few successfully repatriated). Due to restrictions, Aukhs began to settle in other settlements of the republic, which the authorities indicated to them (legislatively, this ban
2028-469: The prefix of the accompanying verb and, in many cases, the adjective too. The first two of these classes apply to human beings, although some grammarians count these as two and some as a single class; the other classes however are much more lexically arbitrary. Chechen noun classes are named according to the prefix that indexes them: When a noun denotes a human being, it usually falls into v- or y-Classes (1 or 2). Most nouns referring to male entities fall into
2080-467: The prefixes before the nouns indicates grammatical gender; thus: vоsha ' brother ' → yisha ' sister ' . Some nouns denoting human beings, however, are not in Classes 1 or 2: bēr ' child ' , for example, is in class 3. Only a few of Chechen's adjectives index noun class agreement, termed classed adjectives in the literature. Classed adjectives are listed with the d-class prefix in
2132-706: The problem of Aukhs, the effectiveness of which is evaluated in different ways. For example, today there is a gradual resettlement of Laks from the Novolaksky district closer to Makhachkala in Novostroy and the return of Aukhs to their former villages. On October 18, 2000, by the Decree of the State Council of the Republic of Dagestan No. 191, the Chechens-Aukhs were attributed to the indigenous peoples of
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2184-551: The reason was the entering Aukhovites fear of losing their winter pastures in the territory of the Khasavyurtovsky District . In 1943, the territory was incorporated into the Aukh district, which only lasted til February 1944, when Aukhs were ethnically cleansed from their homeland along with the rest of the Chechen nation . Part of Aukh was incorporated into the new Novolaksy district and the property and houses of
2236-490: The romanizations below: Whereas Indo-European languages code noun class and case conflated in the same morphemes , Chechen nouns show no gender marking but decline in eight grammatical cases , four of which are core cases (i.e. absolutive , ergative , genitive , and dative ) in singular and plural. Below the paradigm for "говр" (horse). Aukhs Aukhs ( Chechen : Ӏовхой ) are an ethnographic (subroettic) group of Chechens . Aukhs are currently living in
2288-764: The standard dialect. None of the spelling systems used so far have distinguished the vowels with complete accuracy. 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 [ɑ̈] vs. short [ɪ] , [ʊ] , [o] , and [ə] , for example), although which ones remain distinct depends on
2340-505: The territories of Novolaksky (former Aukh District ), Khasavyurtovsky , Babayurtovsky and Kazbekovsky (Western part of the Aukh ) areas of modern central Dagestan, along the rivers Yamansu, Yaryksu, Aktash and Aksai (earlier Eastern Chechnya). They speak the Aukh dialect of the Chechen language. Nowadays, the Aukh District has not yet been restored. The leadership of the Republic of Dagestan conducts some actions to solve
2392-630: The tribes living there had several different names in Russian sources. (Russian: Окоцкая земля) is an Old Russian term used by the Russian Tsardom to denote a Chechen feudal entity, which they encountered in the 16th century. Okotsk was one of the important allies of Russia in the North Caucasus, and had a rivalry with the other polities of Dagestan, particularly the Kumyk controlled Shamkalate of Tarki . It distinguished itself by being in opposition to Persian , Ottoman and Crimean hegemony over
2444-474: The v-class, whereas Class 2 contains words related to female entities. Thus lūlaxuo ' a neighbour ' is normally considered class 1, but it takes v- if referring to a male neighbour and y- if a female. This is similar to the Spanish word estudiante ' student ' , where el estudiante refers to a male student, and la estudiante refers to a female student. In a few words, changing
2496-527: Was created after the October Revolution , and the Latin script began to be used instead of Arabic for Chechen writing in the mid-1920s. The Cyrillic script was adopted in 1938. Almost the entire library of Chechen medieval writing in Arabic and Georgian script about the land of Chechnya and its people was destroyed by Soviet authorities in 1944, leaving the modern Chechens and modern historians with
2548-547: Was created for Chechen. But after the defeat of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria government by the Russian Armed Forces , the Cyrillic alphabet was restored. The first time that the Latin alphabet was introduced , was in 1925, replacing Arabic alphabet. Further minor modifications in 1934, unified Chechen orthography with Ingush. But the Latin alphabet was abolished in 1938, being replaced with Cyrillic. The first, most widespread modern orthography for Chechen
2600-679: Was enacted by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the DASSR on July 16, 1958). Until 1961, Aukhs fought for their return to their native places of residence after which under the threat of a new ethnic cleansing, they had to temporarily abandon their claims. Aukhs never abandoned attempts to return their former dwellings occupied by Avars and Laks . The resulting interethnic tension led to clashes, sometimes with tragic consequences. In 1964, Aukhs made another attempt to return to their native homeland, acting in an organized manner and emphasizing
2652-572: Was the Arabic script, adopted in the 19th century. Chechen was not a traditionally written language, but due to the public's familiarity with the Arabic script - as the script of instruction in the region's Islamic and Quranic schools - the Arabic alphabet was first standardized and adopted for Chechen during the reign of Imam Shamil . Islam has been the dominant religion in Chechnya since the 16th century, and there were 200 religious schools as well as more than 3000 pupils in Chechnya and Ingushetia. Thus
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#17327720951932704-407: Was undocumented and was considered a branch of Sharoish, as many dialects are also used as the basis of intertribal (teip) communication within a larger Chechen " tukkhum ". Laamaroy dialects such as Sharoish, Himoish and Chebarloish are more conservative and retain many features from Proto-Chechen. For instance, many of these dialects lack a number of vowels found in the standard language which were
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