Ingush language

Template:Short description Ingush (; , Template:Tlit, ) is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by about 350,000 people, known as the Ingush, across a region covering the Russian republics of Ingushetia, Chechnya, North Ossetia, as well as the countries of Turkey, Kazakhstan, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and others.

Classification

Ingush and Chechen, together with Bats, constitute the Nakh branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. There is pervasive passive bilingualism between Ingush and Chechen.

Dialects

Ingush is not divided into dialects with the exception of Template:Ill (native name: Галай-Чӏож/Галайн-Чӏаж), which is considered to be transitional between Chechen and Ingush.

Geographic distribution

Ingush is spoken by about 350,000-400,000 people (2020) in Russia, primarily in the North Caucasian republics of Ingushetia, North Ossetia and Chechnya. Speakers can also be found in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Belgium, Norway, Turkey and Jordan.

Official status

Ingush is, alongside Russian, an official language of Ingushetia, a federal subject of Russia.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	и/i	varies	у/u
Mid	э/e	varies	о/o
Low	аь/ea		а/a

The diphthongs are иэ /ie/, уо /uo/, оа , ий /ij/, эи /ei/, ои /oi/, уи /ui/, ов /ow/, ув /uw/.

Consonants

The consonants of Ingush are as follows, including the Latin orthography developed by Johanna Nichols:

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
						palatalized	plain
Nasal		Template:Angbr		Template:Angbr
Plosive	voiceless	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr
	ejective	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr
	voiced	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr			Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr
Fricative	voiceless	Template:Angbr		Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr		Template:Angbr		Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr
	voiced	Template:Angbr		Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr		Template:Angbr
Approximant			Template:Angbr		Template:Angbr
Trill	voiceless			Template:Angbr
	voiced			Template:Angbr

Single consonants can be geminated by various morphophonemic processes.

Writing system

It is possible that during the period of the 8–12th centuries, when churches like Tkhaba-Yerdy emerged in Ingushetia, a writing system based on a Georgian script emerged. This is attested by the fact that a non-Georgian name, 'Enola', was found written on the arc of Tkhaba-Yerdy. Furthermore, Georgian text was found on archaeological items in Ingushetia that could not be deciphered.

It is impossible to pinpoint the precise date at when Arabic writing entered the territory of Chechnya and Ingushetia. One thing is certain: both the Arabic language and writing emerged among the Chechens and Ingush in connection with the spread of Islam. Consequently, Arabic writing appeared in Chechnya no earlier than the second half of the 17th century, and in Ingushetia even later. Already during Imam Shamil's reign, mullahs from among the local population appeared in Chechnya, teaching the Chechen children Arabic literacy; that is, how to read the foreign language of Arabic mechanically, as well as reciting Arabic prayers. Imam Shamil was not supportive of establishing a written language (similar to Persian and Ottoman Turkish) for the languages of the peoples of the Caucasus. He and the clergy tried to introduce the Arabic language and script, but this was unsuccessful because the people did not understand it. Written communication, all official and private correspondence in the part of Chechnya subordinated to Shamil, was conducted in Arabic, while in the part of Chechnya that was part of Russia, official correspondence was conducted in Russian, and private correspondence was conducted in both Russian and Arabic. However, from mid to late 19th century, parallel with efforts with Avar language, Chechnya and Ingushetia also saw the start of using Arabic for the first time for their orthography.

Ingush became a written language with an Arabic-based writing system at the beginning of the 20th century. In those eras, and in the letters written by native Ingush speakers, certain unique letters seem to have been in use:

Arabic Ingush letters

Arabic letters	څ	چ	ژ	ڕ	ڥ	ڢ	ڨ	ڭ	ڮ
Cyrillic equivalents	ч	чI	цI	ц	пI	п	кх	кI	г

After the October Revolution, in the 1920s, simultaneous with Chechen, Circassian, and Turkic languages of the USSR, there was a process of standardizng and indigenizing the already-utilized Arabic script for each of these langugages. By the late 1920s, with a change in Soviet policy, an adaptation of Latin alphabet was taken up, which was later replaced by Cyrillic.

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	П п	Пӏ пӏ	Р р
С с	Т т	Тӏ тӏ	У у	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	Я я	Яь яь	Ӏ ӏ

Grammar

Ingush is a nominative–accusative language in its syntax, though it has ergative morphology.

Case

The most recent and in-depth analysis of the language shows eight cases: absolutive, ergative, genitive, dative, allative, instrumental, lative and comparative.

Cases	Singular	Plural
Absolutive	-⌀	-azh / -ii, -iTemplate:Efn
Ergative	-uo / -z, -aaTemplate:Efn	–azh
Genitive	-a, -nTemplate:Efn	-ii, -i
Dative	-aa, -naTemplate:Efn	-azh-ta
Allative	-ga	-azh-ka
Instrumental	-ca	-azh-ca
Lative	-gh	-egh
Comparative	-l	-el

Tenses

Stem	Suffix	Tense	Example
Infinitive Stem (INFS)	{-a}	Infinitive (INF)	laaca
	{-a}	Imperative (IMP)	laaca
Present Stem (unmarked)	---	Generic Present (PRES)	loac
	{-az&}	Simultaneous Converb (SCV)	loacaz&
	{-ar}	Imperfect (IMPF)	loacar
	{-agDa}	Future (FUT)	loacadda
Past Stem (PAST)	{-ar}	Witnessed Past (WIT)	leacar
	{-aa}/{-na}	Anterior Converb (ACV)	leacaa
	{-aa} + {-D} / {-na} + {-D}	Perfect (PERF)	leacaad
	{-aa} + {-Dar} / {-na} + {-Dar}	Pluperfect (PLUP)	leacaadar

Numerals

Like many Northeast Caucasian languages, Ingush uses a vigesimal system, where numbers lower than twenty are counted as in a base-ten system, but higher decads are base-twenty.

Orthography	Phonetic	Value	Composition
cwa	[t͡sʕʌ]	1
shi	[ʃɪ]	2
qo	[qo]	3
d.i'1	[dɪʔ]	4
pxi	[pxɪ]	5
jaalx	[jalx]	6
vorh	[vʷor̥]	7
baarh	[bar̥]	8
iis	[is]	9
itt	[itː]	10
cwaitt	[t͡sʕɛtː]	11	1+10
shiitt	[ʃitː]	12	2+10
qoitt	[qoitː]	13	3+10
d.iitt1	[ditː]	14	4+10
pxiitt	[pxitː]	15	5+10
jalxett	[jʌlxɛtː]	16	6+10
vuriit	[vʷʊritː]	17	7+10
bareitt	[bʌreitː]	18	8+10
tq'iesta	[tqʼiːestə̆]	19
tq'o	[tqʼo]	20
tq'ea itt	[tqʼɛ̯æjitː]	30	20+10
shouztq'a	[ʃouztqʼə̆]	40	2×20
shouztq'aj itt	[ʃouztqʼetː]	50	2×20+10
bwea	[bʕɛ̯æ]	100
shi bwea	[ʃɪ bʕɛ̯æ]	200	2×100
ezar	[ɛzər]	1000	loan from Persian

1. Note that "four" and its derivatives begin with noun-class marker. d- is merely the default value.

Pronouns

	1st person			2nd person		3rd person
	singular	plural		singular	plural	singular	plural
		exclusive	inclusive
Nominative
Genitive
Dative
Ergative
Allative
Ablative
Instrumental
Lative
Comparative

Word order

In Ingush, "for main clauses, other than episode-initial and other all-new ones, verb-second order is most common. The verb, or the finite part of a compound verb or analytic tense form (i.e. the light verb or the auxiliary), follows the first word or phrase in the clause".

External links

• Appendix:Cyrillic script
• Indigenous Language of the Caucasus (Ingush)
• Ingush Language Project at UC Berkeley
• University of Graz report
• Russian-Ghalghaj (Ingush) vocabulary
• Ingush 100-word Swadesh list at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
• PaydaDosh — Ingush-Russian online dictionary (66,000+ entries, text corpus, proverbs)