Chuvash language

Chuvash (Chuvash: Чӑвашла, Čăvašla, IPA: [tɕəʋaʂˈla])^[3] is a Turkic language spoken in central Russia, primarily in the Chuvash Republic and adjacent areas. It is the only surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic languages.

The writing system for the Chuvash language is based largely on the Cyrillic alphabet, employing all of the letters used in the Russian alphabet, and adding four letters of its own: Ӑ, Ӗ, Ҫ and Ӳ.

Language use

Stamp of the Soviet Union, Chuvash people, 1933

Chuvash is the native language of the Chuvash people and an official language of Chuvashia. It is spoken by 1,640,000 persons in Russia and another 34,000 in other countries.^[4] 86% of ethnic Chuvash and 8% of the people of other ethnicities living in Chuvashia claimed knowledge of Chuvash language during the 2002 census.^[5] Despite that, and although Chuvash is taught at schools and sometimes used in the media, it is considered endangered,^[6][7] because Russian dominates in most spheres of life and few children learning the language are likely to become active users.

History

Chuvash is the most distinctive of the Turkic languages and cannot be understood by speakers of other Turkic tongues. Today, Chuvash is classified, alongside Khazar, Turkic Avar, Bulgar, and, possibly, Hunnic, as a member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family. It is the only language of this family which is not extinct. The conclusion that Chuvash belongs to the Oghuric branch of Turkic arises from the reasoning that the vocabulary shows the language to belong to the r- and l- type which is typical for all languages of this branch. The rest of the Turkic languages (Common Turkic) are of the z- and š- type."^[8]

Since the surviving literary records for the non-Chuvash members of Oghuric are scant, the exact position of Chuvash within the Oghuric family cannot be determined.

Formerly, scholars considered Chuvash not properly a Turkic language at all but, rather, a Turkicized Finno-Ugric (Uralic) language.^[9]

Writing systems

Current

А Ӑ Б В Г Д Е Ё Ӗ Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Ҫ Т У Ӳ Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я

а ӑ б в г д е ё ӗ ж з и й к л м н о п р с ҫ т у ӳ ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

а, ӑ, бӑ, вӑ, гӑ, дӑ, е, ё, ӗ, жӑ, зӑ, и, йӑ, кӑ, лӑ, мӑ, нӑ, о, пӑ, рӑ, сӑ, ҫӑ, тӑ, У, ӳ, фӑ, хӑ, цӑ, чӑ, шӑ, щӑ, хытӑлӑхпалли, ы, ҫемҫелӗхпалли, э, ю, я

In 1873-1938

The modern Chuvash alphabet was devised in 1873 by school inspector Ivan Yakovlevich Yakovlev.^[10]

In 1938, the alphabet underwent significant modification which brought it to its current form.

Previous systems

The most ancient writing system, known as the Orkhon script, disappeared after the Volga Bulgars converted to Islam. Later, the Arabic alphabet was adopted. After the Mongol invasion, writing degraded. After Peter the Great's reforms Chuvash elites disappeared, blacksmiths and some other crafts were prohibited for non-Russian nations, the Chuvash were educated in Russian, writing in runes recurred with simple folks.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants are the following (the corresponding Cyrillic letters are in brackets): /p/ (п), /t/ (т), /k/ (к), /t͡ɕ/ (ч), /ʂ/ (ш), /ɕ/ (ҫ), /χ/ (х), /ʋ/ (в), /m/ (м), /n/ (н), /l/ (л), /r/ (р), /j/ (й). The stops, sibilants and affricates are voiceless and fortes, but instead become lenes (sounding similar to voiced) in intervocalic position and after liquids, nasals and semi-vowels. E.g. Аннепе sounds like annebe, кушакпа sounds like kuzhakpa. However, geminate consonants don't undergo this lenition. Furthermore, the voiced consonants occurring in Russian are used in modern Russian-language loans. Consonants also become palatalized before and after front vowels.

Vowels

According to Krueger (1961), the Chuvash vowel system is as follows (the precise IPA symbols are chosen based on his description, since he uses a different transcription).

András Róna-Tas (1997)^[11] provides a somewhat different description, also with a partly idiosyncratic transcription. The following table is based on his version, with additional information from Petrov (2001). Again, the IPA symbols are not directly taken from the works, so they could be inaccurate.

The vowels ӑ and ӗ are described as reduced, thereby differing in quantity from the rest. In unstressed positions, they often resemble a schwa or tend to be dropped altogether in fast speech. At times, especially when stressed, they may be somewhat rounded and sound similar to /o/ and /ø/.

Additionally, ɔ (о) occurs in loanwords from Russian.

Dialects

There are two dialects of Chuvash: Viryal or Upper (which has both o and u) and Anatri or Lower (which has u for both o and u: up. totă "full", tută "taste" - lo. tută "full, taste" ). The literary language is based on both the Lower and Upper dialects. Both Tatar and the Finnic languages have influenced the Chuvash language, as have Russian, Mari, Mongolian, Arabic, and Persian, which have all added many words to the Chuvash lexicon.

Grammar

Chuvash is an agglutinative language and as such has an abundance of suffixes, but no native prefixes (apart from the reduplicating intensifier prefix as in шурă="white", шап-шурă="very white"). One word can have many suffixes and these can also be used to create new words (like creating a verb from a noun, or a noun from a verbal root, see Vocabulary section further below) or to indicate the grammatical function of the word.

Nouns and adjectives

Chuvash nouns can take endings indicating the person of a possessor. They can take case-endings. There are six noun cases in the Chuvash declension system:

• Nominative
• Genitive, formed by adding -ӑн, -ӗн or simply -н according to the vowel harmony
• Objective, formed by adding -(н)a or -(н)е, according to the vowel harmony
• Locative, formed by adding -тe, -ре, -тa, -ра according to the vowel harmony
• Ablative, formed by adding -тен or -тан, -рен, ран according to the vowel harmony
• Instrumental, formed by adding -пe or -пa, according to the vowel harmony

Also:

• Causal-final, formed by adding -шӑн, -шӗн according to the vowel harmony
• Privative, formed by adding -сӑр, -сӗр according to the vowel harmony
• Terminative-Antessive, formed by adding -(ч)чен
• relic of Distributive, formed by adding -серен: кунсерен "daily, every day", килсерен "per house", килмессерен "every time one comes"
• Semblative, formed by adding -шкал, -шкел to pronouns in genitive or objective case (манaшкал "like me", санашкал "like you", унашкал "like him, that way", пир(н)ешкел "like us", сир(н)ешкал "like you all", хамaшкал "like myself", хунашкал "like yourself", кунашкал "like this"); adding -ла, -ле to nouns (этемле "humanlike", ленинла "like Lenin")

Taking кун (day) as an example:

Possession is expressed by means of constructions based on verbs meaning "to exist" and "to not exist". Thus, while "пур" and "ҫук" represent "exists" and "not exists," "пурччӗ" and "ҫукччӗ" are the preterite of these. These lead to the most bizarre-looking (to a Western reader) sentential structures: e.g., in order to say, "My cat had no shoes," we form:

кушак + -ӑм + -ӑн ура атӑ(и) + -сем ҫук + -ччӗ

(кушакӑмӑн ура аттисем ҫукччӗ)

which literally translates as, "cat-mine-of foot-cover(of)-plural-his non-existent-was." Note that many of the agglutinative languages of Eurasia use a form of the copula (the 'to be' verb) in order to mark possession, instead of a distinct verb meaning 'to have.' An example is Hungarian.

Verbs

Chuvash verbs exhibit person. They can be made negative or impotential; they can also be made potential. Finally, Chuvash verbs exhibit various distinctions of tense, mood, and aspect: a verb can be progressive, necessitative, aorist, future, inferential, present, past, conditional, imperative, or optative.

Vowel harmony

"Vowel harmony" is the principle by which a native Chuvash word generally incorporates either exclusively back vowels (а, ӑ, у, ы) or exclusively front vowels (е, ӗ, и, ӳ). As such, a notation for a Chuvash suffix such as -тен means either -тан or -тен, whichever promotes vowel harmony; a notation such as -тпӗр means either -тпӑр, -тпӗр again with vowel harmony constituting the deciding factor.

Chuvash has two classes of vowels -- front and back (see the table above). Vowel harmony states that words may not contain both front and back vowels. Therefore, most grammatical suffixes come in front and back forms, e.g. Шупашкар'та "in Cheboksary" but килте "at home".

Exceptions

Compound words are considered separate words with respect to vowel harmony: vowels do not have to harmonize between members of the compound (thus forms like сӗтел|пукан "furniture" are permissible). In addition, vowel harmony does not apply for loanwords and some invariant suffixes (such as -ӗ); there are also a few native Chuvash words that do not follow the rule (such as анне "mother"). In such words suffixes harmonize with the final vowel; thus Анне'пе "With the mother".

Word order

Word order in Chuvash is generally Subject Object Verb.

Notes

See also

• Bulgar language
• Cyrillic alphabet
• Hunnic language
• Khazar language
• Oghur languages
• Turkic Avar language
• Turkic language
• Ivan Yakovlev

References

• Čaušević, Ekrem (2002). "Tschuwaschisch. in: M. Okuka (ed.)". Lexikon der Sprachen des europäischen Ostens. Klagenfurt: Wieser. p. 811–815. http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/eeo/Tschuwaschisch.pdf. Retrieved 31 August 2010. 
• Johanson, Lars & Éva Agnes Csató, ed. (1998). The Turkic languages. London: Routledge.
• Lars Johansen (1998). "The history of Turkic". Johanson & Csató. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online CD 98. p. 81–125. http://www.turkiclanguages.com/www/classification.html. Retrieved 5 September 2007. 
• Lars Johanson (1998). "Turkic languages". http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-80003/Turkic-languages. 
• Lars Johanson (2000). "Linguistic convergence in the Volga area". Gilbers, Dicky & Nerbonne, John & Jos Schaeken (ed.). Languages in contact Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi.. pp. 165-178 (Studies in Slavic and General linguistics 28.),. http://www3.germanistik.uni-halle.de/antos/dgfs98/abstracts/johanson.htm. 
• Johanson, Lars (2007). Chuvash. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier.
• Krueger, John (1961). Chuvash Manual. Indiana University Publications. 
• Paasonen, Heikki (1949). Gebräuche und Volksdichtung der Tschuwassen. edited by E. Karabka and M. Räsänen (Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrinenne XCIV), Helsinki. 
• Петров, Н. П (2001). "Чувашская письменность новая". Краткая чувашская энциклопедия. – Чебоксары. pp. С. 475-476. http://www.lib.cap.ru/date_apr_05_2.asp. 

External links

• English-Chuvash Online Dictionary (uses Latin script for Chuvash)
• Chuvash-Russian Online Dictionary
• Chuvash People's Website (English), also available in Chuvash, Esperanto and Russian
• Nutshell Chuvash, by András Róna-Tas
• Chuvash people and language by Éva Kincses Nagy, Istanbul Erasmus IP 1- 13. 2. 2007
• Chuvash manual online
• The Watchtower in Chuvash