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The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or ''Vainakh-Daghestani'', is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of
Dagestan Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, links=yes), officially the Republic of Dagestan (russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respúblika Dagestán, links=no), is a republic of Russia situated in the North Ca ...
, Chechnya and
Ingushetia Ingushetia (; russian: Ингуше́тия; inh, ГӀалгӏайче, Ghalghayče), officially the Republic of Ingushetia,; inh, Гӏалгӏай Мохк, Ghalghay Moxk is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia located in the North Caucas ...
and in Northern
Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...
as well as in
diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews afte ...
populations in
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
and the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europea ...
. They are occasionally called ''Caspian'', as opposed to ''Pontic'' for the
Northwest Caucasian languages The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes ''Pontic languages'' (from the historical region of Pontus, in contrast to ''Caspian languages'' for the Northeast Cauc ...
.


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 Front may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film * ''The Front'', 1976 film Music *The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and ea ...
obstruents, many Northeast Caucasian languages also possess a number of
back The human back, also called the dorsum, is the large posterior area of the human body, rising from the top of the buttocks to the back of the neck. It is the surface of the body opposite from the chest and the abdomen. The vertebral column run ...
consonants, including
uvulars Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not prov ...
,
pharyngeals A pharyngeal consonant is a consonant that is articulated primarily in the pharynx. Some phoneticians distinguish upper pharyngeal consonants, or "high" pharyngeals, pronounced by retracting the root of the tongue in the mid to upper pharynx, ...
, and glottal stops and fricatives. Northeast Caucasian phonology is also notable for its use of numerous
secondary articulation In phonetics, secondary articulation occurs when the articulation of a consonant is equivalent to the combined articulations of two or three simpler consonants, at least one of which is an approximant. The secondary articulation of such co-articu ...
s as contrastive features. Whereas English consonant classes are divided into voiced and voiceless phonemes, Northeast Caucasian languages are known to contrast voiced, voiceless,
ejective In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some ...
and tense phones, which contributes to their large phonemic inventories. Some languages also include palatalization and labialization as contrastive features. Most languages in this family contrast tense and weak consonants. Tense consonants are characterized by the intensiveness of articulation, which naturally leads to a lengthening of these consonants. In contrast to the generally large consonant inventories of Northeast Caucasian languages, most languages in the family have relatively few vowels, although more on average than the Northwest Caucasian languages. However, there are some exceptions to this trend, such as Chechen, which has at least twenty-eight vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs.


Morphology

These languages can be characterized by strong
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry g ...
al
agglutination In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative langu ...
. Weak tendencies towards
inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defi ...
may be noted as well.
Noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
s display covert nominal classification, but partially overt cases of secondary origin can be observed too. The number of noun classes in individual languages range from two to eight. Regarding
grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages present number categories of ...
, there may be a distinction between singular and
plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This d ...
, plurality itself may impact the class to which a noun belongs. In some cases, a grammatical
collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...
is seen. Many languages distinguish ''
local Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administra ...
'' versus ''functional'' cases, and to some degree also '' casus rectus'' versus '' casus obliquus''. The inflectional paradigms are often based on partially classifying productive
stem Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
extensions (
absolutive In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
and
oblique Oblique may refer to: * an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / ) * Oblique angle, in geometry * Oblique triangle, in geometry *Oblique lattice, in geometry * Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the ...
, ergative and
genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
inflection. Localization is mostly conveyed by
postpositions Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
, but it can be also partly based on
preverb Although not widely accepted in linguistics, the term preverb is used in Caucasian (including all three families: Northwest Caucasian, Northeast Caucasian and Kartvelian), Caddoan, Athabaskan, and Algonquian linguistics to describe certain ele ...
s.
Noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
s exhibit incomplete class
agreement Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus, a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of law ** Meeting of ...
, group inflection (on the noun) with partial
attributive In grammar, an attributive expression is a word or phrase within a noun phrase that modifies the head noun. It may be an: * attributive adjective * attributive noun * attributive verb or other part of speech, such as an attributive numeral. ...
oblique marking, which may, in turn, carry a partially determining function. Verbs do not agree with
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of propert ...
, with a few exceptions like Lak, in which first and second persons are marked with the same suffix and verbs agree with the P argument, and Hunzib in which verbs agree with A argument.
Evidentiality In linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and if so, what kind. An evidential (also verificational or validational) is the particul ...
is prominent, with reported, sensory and epistemic moods all appearing as a way of conveying the evidence. Epistemic modality is often tied to the tense.


Ergativity

Most Northeast Caucasian languages exhibit an ergative–absolutive morphology. 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. Note that objects and subjects of intransitive sentences carry no suffix, which is represented by the null suffix, -. Meanwhile, agents of transitive sentences take the ergative suffix, -mu.


Noun classes

Northeast Caucasian languages have between two and eight noun classes. In these languages, nouns are grouped into grammatical categories depending on certain semantic qualities, such as animacy and gender. Each noun class has a corresponding agreement prefix, which can attach to verbs or adjectives of that noun. Prefixes may also have plural forms, used in agreement with a plural noun. The following table shows the noun–adjective agreement paradigm in the Tsez language. Unusual agreement targets In many Northeast Caucasian languages, as well as appearing on adjectives and verbs, agreement can also be found on parts of speech which are not usually able to agree in other language families – for example on adverbs, postpositions, particles, and even case-marked nouns and pronouns. In the example from Archi below, doːʕzub ‘big’ and abu ‘made’, but also the adverb ditːabu ‘quickly’ and the personal pronouns nenabu ‘we’ and belabu ‘to us’, all agree in number and gender with the argument in the absolutive case, χʕon ‘cow’. nenau doːʕzu-b χʕon b-elau ditːau χir au 1PL.INCL.ERG be.big.ATTR-III.SG cow(III) G.ABSIII.SG-1PL.INCL.DAT quickly behind make.PFV ‘We quickly drove the big cow to us (home).’ 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’. �k’a ri-da-la m-īʟ-ōhu-gu ek’wa-la w-uʟ’-u-wudi. long time-INT-ADD N-go.NEG-M DVDIST-LL man-ADD M-die-M-PF3 ‘Shortly after that (lit. ‘long time not having gone’), the man died.’


Language classification

A long-time classification divided the family into Nakh and Dagestanian branches, whence the term Nakho-Dagestanian.See Nichols (2003) 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,See Schulze (2009) although this is still not universally accepted. The following outline, based on the work of linguist
Bernard Comrie Bernard Sterling Comrie, (; born 23 May 1947) is a British-born linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology, linguistic universals and on Caucasian languages. Early life and education Comrie was born in Sunderland, England on 23 M ...
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 (761,960) *
Andic languages The Andic languages are a branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. They are often grouped together with the Avar language Avar (, , "language of the mountains" or , , "Avar language"), also known as Avaric, is a Northeast Caucasi ...
** 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 Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, links=yes), officially the Republic of Dagestan (russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respúblika Dagestán, links=no), is a republic of Russia situated in the North Ca ...
: Axvax, Botlikh,
Buynaksk Buynaksk (russian: Буйна́кск; kum, Шура / Темирхан-Шура, ''Şura / Temirxan-Şura'') is a town in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia, located at the foothills of the Greater Caucasus on the Shura-Ozen River, southwest of ...
(Shura), Čarodinsky (Tsurib),
Gergebil Gergebil (russian: Гергебиль, av, Хьаргаби) is a rural locality (a selo) and the administrative center of Gergebilsky District of the Republic of Dagestan Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, link ...
, Gumbetovsky (Baklul),
Gunib Gunib ( av, Гъуниб), also spelled Ghunib,e.g., Francis Galton, ''Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel in 1860 861, 1862-3', Vol. 3, p. 81; Moshe Gammer, ''Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan' ...
, Karabudaxkent, Kazbekovsky (Dylym), Lavaša, Tsumada (Agvali), Untsukul, Xebda, Xunzaq and Zaqatala rayon in
Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...
.


Dargic (Dargin) dialect continuum

Spoken by 492,490 in Dagestan, as well as Azerbaijan, Central Asia and Ukraine. Dargwa proper is a literary language. * Dargwa (Dargva) * Kajtak * Kubachi * Itsari * Chirag Dargwa is spoken in the following rayons of
Dagestan Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, links=yes), officially the Republic of Dagestan (russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respúblika Dagestán, links=no), is a republic of Russia situated in the North Ca ...
: Aquša, Kaitak, Kayakent, Kubači, Sergokala.


Khinalug (Xinalug) isolate

Spoken in
Quba Quba () is a city and the administrative centre of the Quba District of Azerbaijan. The city lies on the north-eastern slopes of Shahdag mountain, at an altitude of 600 metres above sea level, on the right bank of the Kudyal river. It has a po ...
rayon of
Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...
. * 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 Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, links=yes), officially the Republic of Dagestan (russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respúblika Dagestán, links=no), is a republic of Russia situated in the North Ca ...
: Kumux and Kuli (Vači).


Lezgic family

Spoken in the Southeast
Dagestan Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, links=yes), officially the Republic of Dagestan (russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respúblika Dagestán, links=no), is a republic of Russia situated in the North Ca ...
highlands and in Northern
Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...
. The
Lezgian language Lezgin , also called Lezgi or Lezgian, is a Northeast Caucasian language. It is spoken by the Lezgins, who live in southern Dagestan (Russia); northern Azerbaijan; and to a much lesser degree Turkmenistan; Uzbekistan; Kazakhstan; Turkey, and othe ...
or, as the
Lezgian people Lezgins or Leks ( lez, Лезгияр, Лекьер. lezgijar) are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group native predominantly to southern Dagestan, a republic of Russia, and northeastern Azerbaijan. The Lezgin are predominantly Sunni Muslims and s ...
themselves call it, Лезги чlал (''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 Tabasaran, Udi, Tsakhur and Rutul). They are spoken in the following rayons of
Dagestan Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, links=yes), officially the Republic of Dagestan (russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respúblika Dagestán, links=no), is a republic of Russia situated in the North Ca ...
: Agul, Akhty,
Derbent Derbent (russian: Дербе́нт; lez, Кьвевар, Цал; az, Дәрбәнд, italic=no, Dərbənd; av, Дербенд; fa, دربند), formerly romanized as Derbend, is a city in Dagestan, Russia, located on the Caspian Sea. It is ...
(Kvevar), Kasumxur, Kurakh, Magaramkent, Rutul, Tabasaran, Usukhchay, Khiv and
Quba Quba () is a city and the administrative centre of the Quba District of Azerbaijan. The city lies on the north-eastern slopes of Shahdag mountain, at an altitude of 600 metres above sea level, on the right bank of the Kudyal river. It has a po ...
and Zaqatala in
Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...
. 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 Tsez, also known as Dido (Tsez: () or ()), is a Northeast Caucasian language with about 15,000 speakers (15,354 in 2002) spoken by the Tsez, a Muslim people in the mountainous Tsunta District of southwestern Dagestan in Russia. The name is ...
with 64. Lezgian and Tabasaran are literary languages.


Lezgic family tree

* Peripheral: Archi (970 speakers) * Samur (or ''Nuclear Lezgian'') ** Eastern Samur *** Tabasaran (128,900) *** Lezgian (655,000) *** Aghul (29,300) ***
Udi Udi may refer to: Places * Udi, Enugu, a local government areas and city in Nigeria * Udi, a place in the Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh, India People * Udi Gal (born 1979), Israeli Olympic sailor * Udi Vaks (born 1979), Israeli Olympic judoka ...
(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 Ingushetia (; russian: Ингуше́тия; inh, ГӀалгӏайче, Ghalghayče), officially the Republic of Ingushetia,; inh, Гӏалгӏай Мохк, Ghalghay Moxk is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia located in the North Caucas ...
and
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...
. Chechen and Ingush are official languages of their respective republics. *
Bats Bats are mammals of the Order (biology), order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in fli ...
(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): * Tsez–Hinukh ** Tsez (Dido) (12,500) ** Hinukh (Hinux, Ginukh) (5 as of 2010) * Bezhta–Hunzib–Khwarshi ** Bezhta (Kapucha) (6,800) ** Hunzib (Gunzib) (1,420) ** Khwarshi (Khvarshi) (8,500) All figures except for Khwarshi were retrieved from Ethnologue. These languages are spoken in the Tsunta and Bezhta areas of
Dagestan Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, links=yes), officially the Republic of Dagestan (russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respúblika Dagestán, links=no), is a republic of Russia situated in the North Ca ...
.


Disputed connections to other families


North Caucasian family

Some linguists such as
Sergei Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (russian: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguist and philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothet ...
think that the Northeast and
Northwest Caucasian languages The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes ''Pontic languages'' (from the historical region of Pontus, in contrast to ''Caspian languages'' for the Northeast Cauc ...
are part of a wider North Caucasian family, citing shared vocabulary and typological features as evidence. This proposed family does not usually include the neighboring Kartvelian languages. This hypothesis is not well demonstrated.


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 The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Northern Me ...
and
Urartian Urartian or Vannic is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language which was spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu (''Biaini'' or ''Biainili'' in Urartian), which was centered on the region around Lake Van and had its capital, Tushpa, ...
. Hurrian was spoken in various parts of the
Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Urartian was the language of
Urartu Urartu (; Assyrian: ',Eberhard Schrader, ''The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament'' (1885), p. 65. Babylonian: ''Urashtu'', he, אֲרָרָט ''Ararat'') is a geographical region and Iron Age kingdom also known as the Kingdom of Va ...
, a powerful state that existed between 1000 BC or earlier and 585 BC in the area centered on
Lake Van Lake Van ( tr, Van Gölü; hy, Վանա լիճ, translit=Vana lič̣; ku, Gola Wanê) is the largest lake in Turkey. It lies in the far east of Turkey, in the provinces of Van and Bitlis in the Armenian highlands. It is a saline soda lake, ...
in current
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
. The two languages are classified together as the Hurro-Urartian family. Diakonoff proposed the name ''Alarodian'' for the union of Hurro-Urartian and 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 Johanna Nichols (born 1945, Iowa City, Iowa) is an American linguist and professor emerita in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Ca ...
, which she refers to as ''Proto-Nakh-Daghestanian''.Nichols, Johanna. 2003. The Nakh-Daghestanian consonant correspondences. In Dee Ann Holisky and Kevin Tuite (eds.), ''Current Trends in Caucasian, East European and Inner Asian Linguistics: Papers in honor of Howard I. Aronson'', 207-264. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. : Notation: C = consonant; V = vowel; D = gender affix


Possible connections to the origin of agriculture

The Proto-Northeast Caucasian language had many terms for
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
and
Johanna Nichols Johanna Nichols (born 1945, Iowa City, Iowa) is an American linguist and professor emerita in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Ca ...
has suggested that its speakers may have been involved in the development of agriculture in the
Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
and only later moved north to the Caucasus.See Wuethrich 2000 Proto-NEC is reconstructed with words for concepts such as ''
yoke A yoke is a wooden beam sometimes used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do; some yokes are fitted to individual animals. There are several types of yoke, u ...
'' (*...ƛ / *...ƛƛ’), as well as fruit trees such as '' apple'' (*hʕam(V)c / *hʕam(V)č) and ''
pear Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in the Northern Hemisphere in late summer into October. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the family Rosaceae, bearing the po ...
'' (*qur / *qar; *qʕur ?), that suggest agriculture was well developed before the proto-language broke up.


See also

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Northwest Caucasian languages The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes ''Pontic languages'' (from the historical region of Pontus, in contrast to ''Caspian languages'' for the Northeast Cauc ...
*
North Caucasian languages The North Caucasian languages, sometimes called simply Caucasic, is a proposed language family consisting of a pair of well established language families spoken in the Caucasus, predominantly in the north, consisting of the Northwest Caucasian ...


References


Bibliography

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External links


Various Northeast Caucasian language dictionaries online from IDS
(select simple or advanced browsing)
CIA linguistic map of the Caucasus

Atlas of Multilingualism in Dagestan

Intercontinental Dictionary Series
(contain online dictionaries of various Northeast Caucasian languages) {{DEFAULTSORT:Northeast Caucasian Languages
Caucasian languages The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Linguistic comparison allows ...
Languages of Azerbaijan Languages of Russia Language families