Northeast Caucasian languages

thumb|Main areas of Northeast Caucasian languages

The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or Vainakh-Daghestani, or sometimes Caspian languages (from the Caspian Sea, in contrast to Pontic languages for the Northwest Caucasian languages), is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as in Georgia and diaspora populations in Western Europe and the Middle East. According to Glottolog, there are currently 36 Nakh-Dagestanian languages.

Name of the family

Several names have been in use for this family. The most common term, Northeast Caucasian, contrasts the three established families of the Caucasian languages: Northeast Caucasian, Northwest Caucasian (Abkhaz–Adyghean) and South Caucasian (Kartvelian). This may be shortened to East Caucasian. The term Nakh(o)-Dagestanian can be taken to reflect a primary division of the family into Nakh and Dagestanian branches, a view which is no longer widely accepted, or Dagestanian can subsume the entire family. The rare term North Caspian (as in bordering the Caspian Sea) is only used in opposition to the use of North Pontic (as in bordering the Black Sea) for the Northwest Caucasian languages.

Linguistic features

Phonology

Historically, Northeast Caucasian phonemic inventories were thought to be smaller than those of the neighboring Northwest Caucasian family. However, more recent research has revealed that many Northeast Caucasian languages are much more phoneme-rich than previously believed, with some languages containing as many as 70 consonants.

In addition to numerous front obstruents, many Northeast Caucasian languages also possess a number of back consonants, including uvulars, pharyngeals, and glottal stops and fricatives. Northeast Caucasian phonology is also notable for its use of numerous secondary articulations as contrastive features. Whereas English consonant classes are divided into voiced and voiceless phonemes, Northeast Caucasian languages are known to contrast voiced, voiceless, ejective and tense phones, which contributes to their large phonemic inventories. Some languages also include palatalization and labialization as contrastive features. However, there are some exceptions to this trend, such as Chechen, which has at least twenty-eight vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs. This means that objects of transitive sentences and subjects of intransitive sentences both fall into a single grammatical case known as the absolutive. Subjects of transitive sentences, however, carry a different marking to indicate that they belong to a separate case, known as the ergative. This distinction can be seen in the following two Archi sentences. Objects and subjects of intransitive sentences carry no suffix, which is represented by the null suffix, -<small>∅</small>. Meanwhile, agents of transitive sentences take the ergative suffix, -mu.

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! Intransitive sentence The following table shows the noun–adjective agreement paradigm in the Tsez language.

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! Noun class In the example from Archi below, 'big' and 'made', but also the adverb 'quickly' and the personal pronouns 'we' and 'to us', all agree in number and gender with the argument in the absolutive case, 'cow'.

This kind of clausal agreement has been labelled 'external agreement'. The same term is also used for the (cross-linguistically even rarer) phenomenon where a converb agrees with an argument which lies outside the converb's own clause. This is seen in the following example from Northern Akhvakh, where mīʟō 'not having gone' has a masculine adverbial suffix (-ō), agreeing with hugu ek'wa 'the man'.

Language classification

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A long-time classification divided the family into Nakh and Dagestanian branches, whence the term Nakho-Dagestanian. However, attempts at reconstructing the protolanguage suggest that the Nakh languages are no more divergent from Dagestanian than the various branches of Dagestanian are from each other, although this is still not universally accepted. The following outline, based on the work of linguist Bernard Comrie and others, has been adopted by Ethnologue. An Avar–Andi–Dido branch was abandoned, but has been resurrected as the "New Type" languages in Schulze (2009, 2013) and Lak–Dargwa has likewise returned.

One factor complicating internal classification within the family is that the diachronic development of its respective branches is marked both by an extreme degree of diffusion and divergence followed by secondary convergence, which complicates the comparative method.

Population data is from Ethnologue 16th ed.

Avar–Andic family

Spoken in the Northwest Dagestan highlands and western Dagestan. Avar is the lingua franca for these and the Tsezic languages and is the only literary language.

Schulze (2009) gives the following family tree for the Avar–Andic languages:

Avar–Andic family
Avar (761,960)
Andic languages
Andi (Qwannab) (5,800)
Akhvakh–Tindi
Akhvakh (210 as of 2010)
Karata–Tindi
Karata (Kirdi) (260 as of 2010)
Botlikh–Tindi
Botlikh (210 as of 2010)
Godoberi (130 as of 2010)
Chamalal (500 as of 2010)
Bagvalal–Tindi
Bagvalal (1,450)
Tindi (2,150)

Figures retrieved from Ethnologue. These languages are spoken in the following rayons of Dagestan: Axvax, Botlikh, Buynaksk (Shura), Čarodinsky (Tsurib), Gergebil, Gumbetovsky (Baklul), Gunib, Karabudaxkent, Kazbekovsky (Dylym), Lavaša, Tsumada (Agvali), Untsukul, Xebda, Xunzaq and Zaqatala rayon in Azerbaijan.

Dargic (Dargin) dialect continuum

Spoken by 492,490 in Dagestan, as well as Azerbaijan, Central Asia and Ukraine. Dargwa proper is a literary language.

Dargin

Northern-central group
Mehweb (1,300)
Gapshima (2,300)
Muira (35,000)
Tsudaqar-Usisha-Butri
Tsudaqar (35,000)
Usisha-Butri (8,000)
Northern Dargwa (133,000)
Kadar
Murego-Gubden
Mugi
Upper Mulebki
Aqusha
Aqusha proper
Levashi
Urakhi
Southern group
Ashti-Kubachi
Ashti
Kubachi
Sanzhi-Itsari (1,500-2,000)
Sanzhi
Itsari
Sanakari-Chakhrizhi (900, unclassified)
Amuzgi-Shiri (1,500-2,000)
Amuzgi
Shiri
Southwestern Dargwa (14,000)
Tanti (800)
Sirhwa
Upper Vurkuni
Chirag (2,100-2,400)
Kaitag group
Shari (1,200)
Kaitag (24,000)

Dargwa is spoken in the following rayons of Dagestan: Aquša, Kaitak, Kayakent, Kubači, Sergokala. Figures derived from Koryakov 2021.

Khinalug (Xinalug) isolate

Spoken in Quba region of Azerbaijan.

Khinalug (Xinalug) (1,000 speakers)

Lak isolate

Spoken in the Central Dagestan highlands. Lak is a literary language.

Lak (152,000 speakers)

Lak is spoken in two rayons of Dagestan: Kumux and Kuli (Vači).

Lezgic family

Spoken in the Southeast Dagestan highlands and in Northern Azerbaijan. The Lezgian language or, as the Lezgian people themselves call it, (lezgi ch'al), is the biggest in terms of the number of native speakers of all the languages of the Lezgic group (other languages from this group include Aghul, Tabasaran, Udi, Tsakhur and Rutul). They are spoken in the following rayons of Dagestan: Agul, Akhty, Derbent (Kvevar), Suleyman-Stalsky, Kurakh, Magaramkent, Rutul, Tabasaran, Usukhchay, Khiv and Qusar, Khamchmaz, Quba, Qabala, Oguz, Ismayilli and Zaqatala in Azerbaijan.

Tabasaran was once thought to be the language with the largest number of grammatical cases at 54, which could, depending on the analysis, instead be the Tsez language with 64.

Lezgi, Agul, Rutul, Tabasaran, Tsakhur and Udi are literary languages.

Lezgic family
Peripheral: Archi (970 speakers)
Samur (or Nuclear Lezgian)
Eastern Samur
Tabasaran (128,900)
Lezgian (655,000)
Aghul (29,300)
Udi (6,590)
Southern Samur
Kryts (5,000)
Budukh (1,000)
Western Samur
Rutul (47,400)
Tsakhur (23,673)

All figures retrieved from Ethnologue.

Nakh family

Spoken in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Georgia. Chechen and Ingush are official languages of their respective republics.

Nakh family
Bats (3,420 speakers in Georgia in 2000)
Vainakh languages
Chechen (1,350,000)
Ingush (322,900)

Tsezic (Didoic) family

Spoken mostly in Southwest Dagestan. None are literary languages. Formerly classified geographically as East Tsezic (Hinukh, Bezta) and West Tsezic (Tsez, Khwarshi, Hunzib), these languages may actually form different subgroupings according to the latest research by Schulze (2009):

Tsezic family
Tsez–Hinukh
Tsez (Dido) (17,574)
Hinukh (Hinux, Ginukh) (635)
Bezhta–Hunzib–Khwarshi
Bezhta (Kapucha) (8,138)
Hunzib (Gunzib) (3,466)
Khwarshi (Khvarshi) (8,500)

All figures except for Khwarshi were retrieved from the 2021 Russian census. These languages are spoken in the Tsunta and Bezhta areas of Dagestan.

Disputed connections to other families

North Caucasian family

Some linguists such as Sergei Starostin think that the Northeast and Northwest Caucasian languages are part of a wider North Caucasian family, citing shared vocabulary and typological features as evidence. This proposed family does not include the neighboring Kartvelian languages.

Connections to Hurrian and Urartian

Some linguists—notably Igor M. Diakonoff and Starostin—see evidence of a genealogical connection between the Northeast Caucasian family and the extinct languages Hurrian and Urartian. Hurrian was spoken in various parts of the Fertile Crescent in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Urartian was the language of Urartu, a powerful state that existed between 1000 BC or earlier and 585 BC in the area centered on Lake Van in current Turkey. The two languages are classified together as the Hurro-Urartian family. Diakonoff proposed the name Alarodian for the inclusion of Hurro-Urartian into Northeast Caucasian.

Some scholars, however, doubt that the language families are related or believe that, while a connection is possible, the evidence is far from conclusive.

==Proto-language==

Below are selected Proto-Northeast Caucasian reconstructions of basic vocabulary items by Johanna Nichols, which she refers to as Proto-Nakh-Daghestanian.

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! gloss !! Proto-Nakh-Daghestanian

| eye || *(b)ul, *(b)al

| tooth || *cVl-

| tongue || *maʒ-i

| hand, arm || *kV, *kol-

| back (of body) || *D=uqq'

| heart || *rVk'u / *Vrk'u

| bile, gall || *sttim

| meat || *(CV)=(lV)ƛƛ'

| bear (animal) || *sVʔin / *cVʔin / *čVʔin

| sun || *bVrVg

| moon || *baʒVr / *buʒVr

| earth || *(l)ončči

| water || *ɬɬin

| fire || *c'ar(i), *c'ad(i)

| ashes || *rV=uqq' / *rV=uƛƛ'

| road || *D=eqq' / *D=aqq'

| name || *cc'Vr, *cc'Vri

| die, kill || *D=Vƛ'

| burn || *D=Vk'

| know || *(=D=)Vc'

| black || *alč'i- (*ʕalč'i-)

| long, far || *(CV=)RVxx-

| round || *goRg / *gog-R-

| dry || *D=aqq'(u) / *D=uqq'

| thin || *(C)=uƛ'Vl-

| what || *sti-

| one || *cV (*cʕV ?)

| five || *(W)=ƛƛi / *ƛƛwi

<small>Notation: C = consonant; V = vowel; D = gender affix</small>

Possible connections to the origin of agriculture

The Proto-Northeast Caucasian language had many terms for agriculture and Johanna Nichols has suggested that its speakers may have been involved in the development of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent and only later moved north to the Caucasus. Proto-NEC is reconstructed with words for concepts such as yoke (*...ƛ / *...ƛƛ'), as well as fruit trees such as apple (*hʕam(V)c / *hʕam(V)č) and pear (*qur / *qar; *qʕur ?),