Chechen (, , ) is a Northeast Caucasian language, spoken primarily by the Chechen people, native to the Russian republic of Chechnya, as well as its neighbouring republics. With approximately 1.8 million speakers, it is also spoken by members of the Chechen diaspora throughout Russia and the rest of the world.
History 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 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 a destroyed and no longer existent historical treasury of writings.Jaimoukha. Chechens. Page 212
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 mostly use the Arabic alphabet, while in Turkey they use the Latin alphabet.
Classification 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.
Dialects 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 the Chechen Republic. The dialects of the northern lowlands are often referred to as "" (literally "lowlander's language") and the dialect of the southern mountain tribes is known as "" (lit. "mountainer's language"). 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 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 "". 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 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.
Geographic distribution According to the Russian Census of 2020, 1,490,000 people reported being able to speak Chechen in Russia.
Official status Chechen is an official language of Chechnya.Constitution, Article 10.1
Jordan
Chechens in Jordan have good relations with 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.
Phonology Some phonological characteristics of Chechen include its wealth of consonants and sounds similar to Arabic and the Salishan languages of North America, as well as a large vowel system resembling those of Swedish and German.
Consonants The Chechen language has, like most 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 is found.Johanna Nichols, Chechen, The Indigenous languages of the Caucasus (Caravan Books, Delmar NY, 1994) . Furthermore, all variants except the ejective are subject to phonemic pharyngealization.
LabialAlveolarPostalveolarVelarUvularEpiglottalGlottal plain phar. plain phar. plain phar. plain phar. Nasal Plosivevoiceless lenis () fortis voicedejectiveAffricatevoiceless lenis fortis voicedejectiveFricativevoiceless()voiced()RhoticvoicelessvoicedApproximant ()
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 are denti-alveolar; the others of that column are alveolar. is a back velar, but not quite uvular. The lateral may be velarized, unless it is followed by a front vowel. The trill is usually articulated with a single contact, and therefore sometimes described as a tap . Except in the literary register, and even then only for some speakers, the voiced affricates , have merged into the fricatives , . A voiceless labial fricative is found only in European loanwords. appears both in diphthongs and as a consonant; as a consonant, it has an allophone before front vowels.
Approximately twenty pharyngealized consonants (marked with superscript ) also appear in the table above. Labial, alveolar and postalveolar consonants may be pharyngealized, except for ejectives.
Except when following a consonant, is phonetically , 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 (they surface for example as [dʢ] when voiced and when voiceless), Nichols argues that given the severe constraints against consonant clusters in Chechen, it is more useful to analyze them as single consonants.
Vowels 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 the standard dialect. None of the spelling systems used so far have distinguished the vowels with complete accuracy.
FrontBack~CentralunroundedroundedHigh Mid Low() () Diphthong
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: = ; = ; = .
In closed syllables, long vowels become short in most dialects (not Kisti), but are often still distinct from short vowels (shortened , , and vs. short , , , and , for example), although which ones remain distinct depends on the dialect.
and are in complementary distribution ( occurs after pharyngealized consonants, whereas does not and —identical with for most speakers—occurs in closed syllables, while 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 "one", Ingush , which she analyzes as and . Vowels have a delayed murmured onset after pharyngealized voiced consonants and a noisy aspirated onset after pharyngealized voiceless consonants. The high vowels are diphthongized, , whereas the diphthongs undergo metathesis, .
Phonotactics Chechen permits syllable-initial clusters and non-initially also allows plus any consonant, and any obstruent plus a uvular of the same manner of articulation. The only cluster of three consonants permitted is .
Alphabets
Numerous inscriptions in the Georgian script are found in mountainous Chechnya, but they are not necessarily in Chechen. Later, 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.
Cyrillic script The current official script for Chechen language is Cyrillic. 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.
A new set of orthography rules for the Chechen language was prepared in 2020. In particular, it replaces the letters «я», «яь», «ю», and «юь» with «йа», «йаь», «йу», and «йуь», except for loanwords and proper names. Thus, the letters Юь юь and Яь яь have been excluded from the Chechen alphabet. The updated rules of Chechen orthography came into force on January 1, 2022.
As a result, the modern Chechen alphabet has the following form:
А а Аь аь Б б В в Г г ГӀ гӀ Д д Е е Ё ё Ж ж З з И и Й й К к Кх кх Къ къ КӀ кӀ Л л М м Н н О о Оь оь П п ПӀ пӀ Р р С с Т т ТӀ тӀ У у Уь уь Ф ф Х х Хь хь ХӀ хӀ Ц ц ЦӀ цӀ Ч ч ЧӀ чӀ Ш ш Щ щ Ъ ъ Ы ы Ь ь Э э Ю ю Юь юь Я я Яь яь Ӏ ӏ
Lower-case palochka, , is found in handwriting. Usually, palochka uppercase and lowercase forms consistent in print or upright, but only upper-case is normally used in computers.
Latin script 1925 Latin alphabet
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.
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
1992 Latin alphabet
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 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.
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 Ꞑ ꞑ(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
Arabic script
The first, most widespread modern orthography for Chechen was the Arabic script, adopted in the 19th century.Aliroev, I. Y. (1999). Чеченский язык (Chechen Language) (pp. 24–31). 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 the Arabic script was well established among the speakers of Chechen.