Chechen

  

 

The Chechen Republic is part of the Russian Federation. Its Russian name is: Чеченская Республика "Chechen Republic" while in Chechen it is called: Нохчийн Республика "Noxtch Republic". The ethnonym "Chechen" was attributed to this people by the Russians during the conquest of the Caucasus at the beginning of the 19th century and would be the name of the village where the Russians established their first contact with them. The Chechens call themselves Нохчи/Noxči "Noxtch" living in нохчийн мохк/noxčījn moxk "noxtch country" and speaking нохчийн мотт/noxčījn mott "noxtch language".

Administratively, Chechnya is divided into 18 districts. Its capital Grozny is a city of almost 300,000 inhabitants. According to the 2010 federal census figures there are just over 1 million people living in Chechnya. About ten ethnic groups, Caucasian or not, are currently present in this country but they are all in the minority, the Chechen ethnic group representing 95% of the population. Even before the conflicts with Russia, Chechens have always been in the majority, although in a smaller proportion, since before 1989 they represented 57.8% of the population.

Official language of the Republic alongside Russian since 1922, Chechen remains the language of the home, the family and intergenerational relations. The vast majority of Chechens are bilingual: Chechen-Russian, and if there are monolingual people, it is more likely that they speak only Russian rather than exclusively Chechen. Levels of proficiency in Chechen are very varied and depend strongly on the place of origin. The urban population is even more likely than the rural population to use Russian, and for many years, particularly from 1970 to 1990, it was in urban areas that the mother tongue was no longer or rarely passed on to children.

Chechen and Ingush were given a writing style at the beginning of the 20th century, and were considered literary languages in 1923 for Ingush and in 1925 for Chechen. The first books were published in the Latin alphabet, supplanting the Arabic alphabet previously used in madrasas or Koranic schools. Thirteen years later, the Latin alphabet was abandoned because all the languages of the Soviet Union had to be written in Cyrillic. From 1991 to 1994, Latin script became the official script of the Republic of Itchkeria (the name of Chechnya during the period of its independence).

What is commonly known as Chechen is the variety used as a literary standard, a variety spoken in the plains, hence its name: the Chechen of the plains or ploskost. It is the dialect spoken in Grozny and its surroundings

 

 

Four other dialects, some of which have varieties of their own, are located in Chechnya, all of them in the mountainous areas corresponding to the original settlement areas:

Galanchoj was spoken in the district of the same name which, because of its size, had three varieties: terloj, lamakkin and melkhin. The latter is the closest to the Ingush. Galanchoj is almost identical to the standard at present.

• We notice changes in the vowel: passage from anterior to posterior or vice versa gal "burden". [myħ] муьхь/müxh, tch. muħ] мохь/moxh, gal. "summit". [byħ] byħ/büxh, tch. [buħ] бохь/boxh,
• what takes a long time in one variety becomes short in the other, so "homemade" gal. [ts'a:] цІа/cā, tch. [tsa] цІа/ca.

Itum-kale is still spoken in a few villages in the south-western mountains but no longer differs much from the Chechen plains.

• There is a regular correspondence where the standard carries out the sequence of phonemes /x/ + /k/ the itum-kale favours the vibrant: /r/ + /k/ thus "country" it-k. морк/mork, tch. мохк/moxk, "fog" it-k. дорк/dork, tch. дохк/doxk.
• After the vibrating one does not find a "millet" it-k. борс/bors but in ch. борц/borc, "pepper" in it-k. бурш/burš and in ch. бурч/burč.

The Sharoevsky spoken in the south has lost its variants and many of its speakers have been moved to the plains, resulting in a loss of vitality.

There is an important phenomenon of affrication at the final:

	sharoevski	Chechen Plains
"knife",	[urts] урц/urc	[urs] урс/urs
"cucumber	[narts] нарц/narc	nærs] наьрс/nærs
"Heavens	[ʔɑrtʃ] Іарч/'arč	[ʔɑrʃ] Іарш/'arš.

 

The sequence of phonemes /s/ + /t/ to the initial is reduced to /s/ as well: "bull" tch. stu] сту/stu becomes sha. [su] су/su, "man" ch. стаг/stag is reduced to sha. at саг/sag.

 

The vowel of the noun retains its quality when it is determined by the plural even though this leads to a vowel change in the standard, [a] closes in [e] as well:

	sharoevski	Chechen Plains
	nom-plural
гІаз/ghaz " goose	гІазaш/ghazaš	гІeзaш/ghezaš
кад/kad " cups "	kādaš/kādaš	кедаш/kedaš
тал/tal "poplar".	таллаш/tallaš	таьллаш/tællaš.

 

Cheberloj in the south-east is nowadays spoken in only three villages but has a variety that is still active: vedeno.

• The realization of the phoneme /a/ is more open like this: The realization of the phoneme /a/ is more open as follows: "to say. accomplished" is realized in cheb. [allǝ] allǝ/alla whereas we'll say in tch. [ællǝ] аьлла/ælla.
• The plural is realised [-oʃ] if the vowel of the noun is /u/: бух/bux "fond" in the plural becomes cheb. тур/boxxoš " fond ", тур/tur " épée " becomes торрош/torroš " épée " whereas in standard we observe another vocal harmonization tch. тарраш/baxxaš " fonds ", тарраш/tarraš " épée ".
• Compared to the standard, a disaffection is noted as follows: "renting" cheb. [lasǝ] ласа/lasa, tch. [latsǝ] latsǝ/laca, "splinter" cheb. duq'ars] дукъарс/duq'ars, in tch. duq'arts] дукъарц/duq'arc.
• The phonemes /y/, /y:/ and /e:/ do not exist in Cheberloj because they are less subject to the influence of Turkish.

• Therefore /a/ initial of the cheberloj always corresponds to /e/ in Chechen Plains, here are some examples: "thousand" cheb. азир/azir, tch. эзар/ezar, " camel " cheb. анкал/ankal, tch. эмкал/emkal, " calf " cheb. āse/āse, tch. эса/ēsa.
• Where the standard favours the anterior vowels, the cheberloj prefers the posterior ones: "sieve" cheb. цоцо/coco, tch. цаца/caca, "bayonet" cheb. цомзо/comzo, ch. цамза/camza, " man/human " одом/odom, ch. адам/adam.

• The vocal alternation in the name after suffixing a case is less important than in the standard.

Two dialects are spoken outside the borders of Chechnya for political reasons:

Akkinski is still spoken in Dagestan by a few thousand speakers. In 1957 on return from deportation, the borders of Chechnya were redrawn and the district of Xaavjurt was allocated to the Republic of Dagestan. This is the most conservative form of Chechen, which makes it the furthest variety from the standard Chechen. The phonological changes of the standard Chechen can be understood from the Akkinski. The main characteristics of the Akkinski are as follows:

• the phoneme /e:/ is realised in a more open way [æ:],
• the succession of phonemes/l/+/n/ is preserved to achieve the morpheme of the "accomplished" aspect, whereas there has been a progressive assimilation in Chechen of the plains, thus : The word "accomplished" is said in Akk. [ælna] аьлна/ælna and in tch. [ællǝ] аьлла/ælla.
• The succession /r/+/x/ found in akkinski has been transformed into /l/+/x/ in standard Chechen: "sun" is realised in akk. [marx] марх/marx and becomes in tch. [malx] малх/malx. The vibrating has softened or lenited into a lateral one.
• The final semi-consonants have disappeared as standard, as well : "winter" akk. [ʔɑj] Іай/'aj becomes in tch. [ʔɑ] ʔɑ/'a, " snow " akk. [law] лав/lav becomes in tch. [lo] ло/lo.
• Some initial vowels followed by two consonants have also disappeared in standard Chechen as well: "bull akk. [usta] уста/usta gives in ch. stu] сту/stu.
• The pluralization of a name in Akkinski does not cause either vocal harmony or double consonant, so :

	back	back+plural
akkinski	букъ/buq'	букъаш/buq'aš
cheberloj	букъ/buq'	боккъош/bokq'oš
Chechen Plains	букъ/buq'	баккъаш/bakq'aš

 

Kistin is a variety spoken in Georgia and more particularly in the Pankissi Valley, a region bordering Chechnya. Today there are sixteen villages with about 75% of Kistins, descendants of the Chechens who migrated to Georgia at the end of the 19th century. This dialect was strongly influenced by Georgian, especially as for a long time this population had very little contact with the Chechens in Chechnya.

• Its lexicon has far fewer Turkish and Arabic borrowings than the varieties spoken in Chechnya and Dagestan.
• It knows a more important use of affriquées than in other varieties, vocal changes and reductions to the finale such as "dire. accompli" kis. [æl] аьлл/æll, tch. [ællǝ] аьлла/ælla " allumer.accompli " kist. [let] летт/lett, tch. [lettǝ] лeттa/letta.

The dialectal differences today have largely faded away, on the one hand because of the predominance of Russian and on the other hand because of the preponderance of Plains Chechen, which as a literary language has become the norm, the standard that is taught.

 

The phonology of Chechnya

The vocal system of the Chechen is as follows:

 

	anterior		posterior
	stretched	rounded	rounded
1°	/i/ /i:/	/y/ /y:/	/u/ /u:/
2°	/e/ /e:/		/o/ /o:/
3°	/a/ /a:/

Table 1 Vowel phonemes of the Chechen

 

The inventory of the consonant phonemes of Chechnya :

		lab	tooth	alv	pal	bike	uv	pha	glot
occlusive	deaf sound	/p/ /b/	/t/ /d/			/k/ /g/	/q/		/ʔ/
	glottalized	/p'/	/t'/			/k'/	/q'/
	nasal	/m/		/n/
affriquées	deaf sound			/ts/	/tʃ/
	glottalized			/ts'/	/tʃ'/
fricatives	deaf sound	(/f/) /v/		/s/ /z/	/ʃ/ /ʒ /	/x/ /ɣ/		/ħ/	/h/
	vibrant			/r/ [1]
approximate			/l/		/j/

Table 2 The consonant phonemes of Chechnya

 

The phonological system of the Chechen is built around eight articulation loci and eight series to form four correlations: a nasality correlation, a tone correlation, a glottalization correlation and an approximation correlation:

/m/		/n/
/b/	/v/	/d/	/z/	/ʒ/	/g/	/ɣ/
/p/	/f/	/t/	/ts/ /s/	/tʃ/    /ʃ/	/k/	/x/	/q/	/ħ/	/h/ /ʔ/
/p'/		/t'/	/ts'/	/tʃ'/	/k'/		/q'/
		/l/		/j/

Only one phoneme is isolated in this system: /r/.

Table 3 The phonological system of consonants in Chechnya

 

Main characteristics of the Chechen

The Chechen makes a clear distinction between nouns and verbs. Thus nouns can be determined by the plural, by a specific determinant: demonstrative, quantitative etc. Nouns can determine the nucleus of the sentence by means of a casual connector or a postposition. Verbs, on the other hand, never behave like nouns, and have their own specific determinations (tense, aspect, mode, etc.). There is therefore a strong verbo-noun opposition in Chechnya.

The verb is always the predicate, i.e. the nucleus, the syntactic centre of the sentence; it necessarily needs an actant to form a syntactically and semantically valid sentence:

1. Со ловзу [2]

so	lovzu
P1	play

"I play"

Grammatical people are always independent, so the verb never receives a pronominal index:

2. Ас хьоьга и ло

as	xhö-ga	i	lo
P1.erg	P2-loc	P3	give

"I give it to you"

Ergative structure

Chechen is one of the languages with an ergative structure. When the verb is uniactanciel, the single actant that determines the verb is not introduced by a case, so it is unmarked. This single actant can, as a participant in the case, play any semantic role, in particular that of an agent:

 

3. И говр йоду

i	govr	j=odu
demdist	horse(giii)	giii=run

"This horse gallops"

When the verb is biactal, one of the actants is necessarily introduced by a case while the other actant is unmarked. The unlabeled actant always plays the role of the patient, it is the proof that the structure is ergative:

4. Стаго Іаьржа говр лоллу

stag-o	'ærža	govr	lollu
man-erg	black	horse	spur

"(One) man spurs (his) black horse "

 

Order of terms

The order of the terms is quite free in Chechen, so to speak: We will build this house in six months, multiple possibilities are accepted and attested :

Оха и цІa цІa ялх баттахь баттахь дийра ду/Oxa i ts'a jalx battаxh dījra du

Оха дийрa ду и цІa цІa ялх баттахь/Oxa dījra du i ts'a jalx battаxh

Оха ялх баттахь и цІa цІa дийра ду/Oxa jalx battаxh i ts'a dījra du

И цІa оха оха ялх баттахь ду/I ts'a oxa jalx battаxh dījra du

Ялх баттахь дийрa ду оха оха и ц1a/Jalx battаxh dījra du oxa i ts'a

И цІa ялх баттахь дийрa ду dījra dījra dījra dījra dījra dījra dījra dījra dījra dījra dījra

However, the most frequent order places the verb at the end of the statement. Thus the most neutral sentence from an enunciative point of view is the following:

 

5. Оха ялх баттахь и цІa дийра ду

oxa	jalx	batt-axh	i	ts'a	d=īj-ra d=u
P4excl. erg	six	mois-abl	demdist	house(gv)	gv=do-cer gv=cer

"We'll build (the) house in six months."

The hierarchy of determination relations imposes a strict order that makes it possible to distinguish possessor-possessed, determinant-determined, and in a prototypical way at the level of the biactanical sentence, the semantic roles:

agent	patient	lawsuit
oxa	ts'a	d=īj-ra d=u
P4excl. erg	house(gv)	gv=do-cer gv=cer

 

Inflectional language

Chechen is an inflectional language that marks most of its syntactic relations by means of case-specific connectors. This language favours the suffixing of grammatical units in both the nominal and the verbal syntagm. The order is strict when several units are combined with the verb :

6. Иза журнал доьшуш вара хІинцца

iza	žurnal	d=öšu-š v-a-ra	hintststsa
P3(m)	newspaper(gv)	gv=lire-prog m=prog-pas	at the moment

"He was just now reading (his) diary."

Different syntax functions are possible by using case connectors. There are seven cases: genitive, dative, ergative, instrumental, locative, nursing and comparative to which are added a number of complex spatial cases. The suffixing of grammatical units leads, depending on the context, to numerous variations in form as well as amalgamations. In example 6: оха/oxa "P4excl.erg" is an amalgam: the signifier covers two minimal significant units that can be identified by switching analysis: the exclusive person pronoun 4: тхо/txo and the "ergative" case: -aс/-as.

 

Language with a gender system

Like all the other North Caucasian languages, Chechen uses a fairly developed system of "genders" whose prefix appears at the initial of certain verbs, a few adjectives and Cardinal Four only (plus its derivatives). The major characteristic of the gender system is that it is a type of nominal categorization that is not manifested on the noun itself but on other lexical and grammatical units (chordal patterns). Gender is often based on a male/female/neutral opposition. However, Chechnya has a system of six genders which divides the inanimate and animate non-human into four distinct neutral genders. In the following example, иъ/govr 'horse' has the gender index й/j which is by agreement prefixed with the initial of -оккха/-okkha 'big', -иъ/-i' 'four' and the verb -говр/-u 'to be':

7. Йоккха йиъ говр ю

j=okkha	j=i'.	govr	j=u
giii=large	giii=four	horse(giii)	giii=to be

"There are four great horses"

When switching стаг/govr "horse" to стаг/stag "man", the prefix changes because the gender is different:

8. Виъ воккха стаг ву

v=i'	v=okkha	stag	v=u
m=four	m=large	man	me=being

"There are four great men"

The verb can only agree in gender with the unmarked noun, as in the following example:

9. Стаго Іаьржа говр йерзайо

stag-o	'ærža	govr	j=erza=j=u
man-erg	black	horse(giii)	giii=heal=giii=heal

"(One) man heals (the) dark horse "

In an anaphoric way, the grammatical person's referent also imposes the agreement in gender at the initial of the verb or within it when the unit is complex. In the following example, the compound verb охьад.ижа/oxhad.iža "to fall" consists of охьа/oxha "down" and д.ижа/d.iža[3] "to lie down", and the latter unit necessarily receives the noun's gender agreement.

10. Иза охьавоьжна

iza	oxha=v=öžna
P3(m)	fall=m=fall. acc

"He fell" (it's about a man)

11. Иза охьайоьжна

iza	oxha=j=öžna
P3(f)	fall=f=fall. acc

"She fell" (it's a woman's fall).

12. Иза охьадоьжна

iza	oxha=d=öžna
P3(gv)	fall=gv=fall. acc

"He/she has fallen down" (it is a child, a baby or an object such as a knife for example).

 

Bibliographical references

Guérin Françoise

Arsanov I. A., [Арсаханов И. А], 1969, Чеченская диалектология, [Chechen Dialectology], Grozny, Publishing of Chechen-Ingush books (in Russian)

Decheriev Y, D, [Дешериев Ю., Д], 1963, Сравнительно-Историческая грамматика нахских языков, [Comparative and Historical Grammar of the Nakh Languages and the Origin and Historical Evolution of the Peoples of the Caucasus Mountains], Books of Chechnya and Ingushetia, Grozny.

Tchokaev K. Z, [Chokaev K. Z.], 1970, Chechen Morphology. Word formation of parts of speech, [La morphologie de la langue tchétchène. Dérivation des parties du discours], vol 2, Grozny, Edition des livres tchétchéno-ingouches. (en russe)

Yakovlev N. F, [Яковлев, Н. Ф], 1960, Морфология чеченского языка, [Morphology of the Chechen Language], Volume 1, Grozny, Edition of Chechen-Ingush Books. (in Russian)