The Hinuq language (autonym: гьинузас мец ''hinuzas mec'', also known as Hinukh, Hinux, Ginukh, or Ginux) is a
Northeast Caucasian language
The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or ''Vainakh-Daghestani'', is a language family, family of languages spoken in the Republics of Russia, Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and ...
of the
Tsezic subgroup. It is spoken by about 200 to 500 people, the
Hinukhs
The Hinukh ( Hinukh: гьинухъес ''hinuqes'', av, гьинухъесел , translit=hinuqesel) are a people of Dagestan living in 2 villages: Genukh, Tsuntinsky District - their 'parent village' and Novomonastyrskoe, Kizlyarsky District ...
, in the
Tsuntinsky District
Tsuntinsky District (russian: Цунти́нский райо́н) is an administrativeLaw #16 and municipalLaw #6 district (raion), one of the forty-one in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia. It is located in the southwest of the republic. The are ...
of southwestern
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 C ...
, mainly in the village of
Genukh (Hinukh: ''Hino''). Hinukh is very closely related to
Tsez, but they are not entirely mutually intelligible.
Only half of the children of the village speak the Hinukh language. As Hinukh is unwritten,
Avar and
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
are used as literary languages. Hinukh is not considered to have dialects, but due to its linguistic proximity to Tsez, it was once considered a Tsez dialect.
The Hinukh people were already mentioned in the
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
chronicles of the
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
. The language itself was first described in 1916 by
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
n ethnographer A. Serzhputovsky.
Phonology
Vowels
Hinukh distinguishes 6 vowel qualities , all of which can be either long or short. Two vowels can occur
pharyngealized
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.
IPA symbols
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicated ...
: and . However, these are only used by the older generation. Today they are usually replaced by .
Consonants
Like many Caucasian languages, Hinuq has a large number of consonants. In addition to voiced and unvoiced consonants, there are also ejectives.
Morphology
It is an agglutinative language which makes mainly use of suffixes.
Nouns
Hinukh is an
ergative-absolutive language and, like most Northeast Caucasian languages, shows a rich case system. There are six non-spatial cases (Absolutive, Ergative, First Genitive, Second Genitive, Dative, Instrumental) as well as 35 spatial cases. The spatial case system itself consists of two categories, location and orientation, expressed by the use of direction markers (Essive, Lative, First Ablative, Second Ablative, Directional). The plural suffix is almost invariably ''-be''.
Hinuq distinguishes a direct and
oblique stem
In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. The term is used with slightly different meanings depending on the morphology of the language in question. In Athabaskan linguistics, for example, a verb stem ...
. Case suffixes are primarily added to the oblique stem. To form the oblique stem, there are different options, including oblique suffixes, epenthetic vowels, deletion of the base-stem-final consonant, vowel, or semivowel; stress shift or ablaut. The oblique stem suffixes are ''-mo'', ''-a'', ''-la'', ''-i'', ''-ya'', ''-o'', ''-li'', ''-yi'', ''-ra'', ''-ro'', ''-ru'', ''-do'', ''-u'', ''-na'', ''-nu''. Some examples of nominal declension are given below.
There are five genders in Hinuq which play an important role in the language's grammar.
Verbs
Tenses
In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns.
The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, ...
are marked synthetically on the verbs by means of affixes. As its sister languages
Bezhta and Tsez, Hinukh differentiates between "witnessed past" (ending in ''-s'' or ''-š'') and "unwitnessed past" (in ''-no''); the present tense is marked with the suffix ''-ho''. In the future tense, Hinukh distinguishes a "direct future" (''-n''), which is used only in the first person and an "indirect future" (''-s'') used for all other persons.
Numerals
The numeral system is
vigesimal
vigesimal () or base-20 (base-score) numeral system is based on twenty (in the same way in which the decimal numeral system is based on ten). '' Vigesimal'' is derived from the Latin adjective '' vicesimus'', meaning 'twentieth'.
Places
In ...
, which means that it is a base-20 system, a feature commonly found among the languages of the Caucasus.
References
* Forker, Diana
A Grammar of Hinuq Mouton Grammar Library
GL63. DE GRUYTER Mouton, 2013. - 827 pages.
External links
The Peoples of the Red Book: THE HINUKHSHinuq basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical DatabaseRosetta Project: Hinukh Swadesh List
Agglutinative languages
Northeast Caucasian languages
Languages of Russia
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