Ingush language

Ingush
гӏалгӏай мотт (Ghalghaj mott)
Pronunciation	[ˈʁəlʁɑj mot]
Native to	North Caucasus
Region	Ingushetia, Chechnya
Ethnicity	Ingush
Native speakers	330,000 (2010–2017)
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Nakh Vainakh (Chechen–Ingush) Ingush
Writing system	Cyrillic (current) Georgian, Arabic, Latin (historical)
Official status
Official language in	Russia Ingushetia
Language codes
ISO 639-2	inh
ISO 639-3	inh
Glottolog	ingu1240

Ingush (/ˈɪŋɡʊʃ/; Гӏалгӏай мотт, Ghalghaj mott, pronounced [ˈʁəlʁɑj mot]) is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by about 500,000 people, known as the Ingush, across a region covering the Russian republics of Ingushetia and Chechnya.

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.

Geographic distribution

Ingush is spoken by about 413,000 people (2002), primarily across a region in the Caucasus covering parts of Russia, primarily Ingushetia 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.

Writing system

It is possible that during the period of 8–12th century, when the Temples like Tkhaba-Yerdy emerged in Ingushetia, a writing system based off 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.

Ingush became a written language with an Arabic-based writing system at the beginning of the 20th century. After the October Revolution it first used a Latin alphabet, 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

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	и/i [ɪ]	varies [ɨ]	у/u [ʊ]
Mid	э/e [e]	varies [ə]	о/o [o]
Low	аь/ea [æ]		а/a [ɑː]

The diphthongs are иэ /ie/, уо /uo/, оа /oɑ/, 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	Alveolar		Postalveolar/ Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Epiglottal	Glottal
			central	sibilant		palatalized	plain
Nasal		м m [m]	н n [n]
Plosive	ejective	пӏ pʼ [pʼ]	тӏ tʼ [tʼ]	цӏ cʼ [t͡sʼ]	чӏ ch’ [t͡ʃʼ]	кӏ jkʼ [kʲʼ]	кӏ kʼ [kʼ]	къ qʼ [qʼ]
	voiceless	п p [p]	т t [t]	ц c [t͡s]	ч ch [t͡ʃ]	к jk [kʲ]	к k [k]	кх q [q]	ӏ w [ʡ]	ъ ʼ [ʔ]
	voiced	б b [b]	д d [d]			г jg [ɡʲ]	г g [ɡ]
Fricative	voiceless	ф f [f]		с s [s]	ш sh [ʃ]		х x[χ]		хь hw [ʜ]	хӏ h [h]
	voiced	в v [ʋ]		з z [z]	ж zh [ʒ]		гӏ gh [ʁ]
Approximant			л l [l]		й j [j]
Trill	voiceless		рхӏ rh [r̥]
	voiced		р r [r]

Dialects

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

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, -i3
Ergative	-uo / -z, -aa1	–azh
Genitive	-a, -n2	-ii, -i
Dative	-na, aa2	-azh-ta
Allative	-ga	-azh-ka
Instrumental	-ca	-azh-ca
Lative	-gh	-egh
Comparative	-l	-el

1. -uo is the only productive form. -z appears with personal names, kin terms, and other nouns referring to humans. -aa occurs with some declensions and is increasingly unproductive in colloquial use.
2. Allomorph after vowels
3. The choice of -azh vs. -ii is lexically determined for the nominative, but other cases are predictable.

Tenses

Stem	Suffix	Tense	Example
Infinitive Stem	{-a}	Infinitive (INF)	laaca
(INFS)	{-a}	Imperative (IMP)	laaca
Present Stem	---	Generic Present (PRES)	loac
(unmarked)	{-az&}	Simultaneous Converb (SCV)	loacaz&
	{-ar}	Imperfect (IMPF)	loacar
	{-agDa}	FUTURE (FUT)	loacadda
Past Stem	{-ar}	Witnessed Past (WIT)	leacar
(PAST)	{-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

	1sg	1plexcl	1plincl	2sg	2pl	3sg	3pl
Nom.	so	txo	vai	hwo	sho/shu	yz	yzh
Gen.	sy	txy	vai	hwa	shyn	cyn/cun	caar
Dat.	suona	txuona	vaina	hwuona	shoana	cynna	caana
Erg.	aaz	oaxa	vai	wa	oasha	cuo	caar
All.	suoga	txuoga	vaiga	hwuoga	shuoga	cynga	caarga
Abl.	suogara	txuogara	vaigara	hwuogara	shuogara	cyngara	caargara
Instr.	suoca(a)	txuoca(a)	vaica(a)	hwuoca	shuoca(a)	cynca	caarca(a)
Lat.	sogh	txogh	vaigh	hwogh	shogh	cogh	caaregh
Csn.	sol	txol	vail	hwol	shol	cul/cyl	caarel

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".

Muusaa vy hwuona telefon jettazh

|Musa V.PROG 2sg.DAT telephone striking

|It's Musa. It's Musa on the phone for you. (After answering the phone.)

Bibliography

English sources

• Nichols, Johanna (2011-03-15). Ingush Grammar (PDF). Berkeley, California; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press. pp. 1–806.

Russian sources

• Chentieva, Maryam (1958). Oshaev, Khalid (ed.). История Чечено-Ингушской письменности [The History of Checheno-Ingush writing] (in Russian). Grozny: Checheno-Ingush Book Publishing House. pp. 1–86.
• Dudarov, Abdul-Mazhit (2017). Akieva, Petimat (ed.). История эволюции ингушского письма [History of the evolution of Ingush writing] (PDF) (in Russian). Nazran: Kep. pp. 1–224. ISBN 978-5-4482-0015-1.
• Koryakov, Yuriy (2006). "Реестр Кавказских языков" [Register of Caucasian languages] (PDF). Атлас кавказских языков [Atlas of Caucasian languages] (PDF) (in Russian). Moscow: Piligrim. pp. 21–41. ISBN 5-9900772-1-1.

External links

• Appendix:Cyrillic script
• Indigenous Language of the Caucasus (Ingush)
• Ingush Language Project at UC Berkeley
• University of Graz report Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine
• Russian-Ghalghaj (Ingush) vocabulary
• Ingush 100-word Swadesh list at the Global Lexicostatistical Database