Svan ( ''lušnu nin''; ka, სვანური ენა, tr) is a Kartvelian language spoken in the western Georgian region of

Svaneti Svaneti or Svanetia (Suania in ancient sources; ka, სვანეთი ) is a historic province in the northwestern part of Georgia. It is inhabited by the Svans, an ethnic subgroup of Georgians. Geography Situated on the southern slop ...

primarily by the Svan people. With its speakers variously estimated to be between 30,000 and 80,000, the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

designates Svan as a "definitely

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...

". It is of particular interest because it has retained many archaic features that have been lost in the other Kartvelian languages.

Features

Familial features

Like all languages of the Caucasian language family, Svan has a large number of consonants. It has agreement between subject and object, and a

split-ergative In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergati ...

morphosyntactic system. Verbs are marked for

aspect Aspect or Aspects may refer to: Entertainment * ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art * Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company * Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England * ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...

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 ...

and "version".

Distinguishing features

Svan retains the voiceless aspirated uvular plosive, , and the glides /w/ and /j/. It has a larger vowel inventory than Georgian; the Upper Bal dialect of Svan has the most vowels of any South-Caucasian language, having both long and short versions of plus , a total of 18 vowels (Georgian, by contrast, has just five). Its morphology is less regular than that of the other three sister languages, and there are notable differences in conjugation.

Distribution

Svan is the native language of fewer than 30,000 Svans (15,000 of whom are Upper Svan dialect speakers and 12,000 are Lower Svan), living in the mountains of

, i.e. in the districts of

Mestia Mestia ( ka, მესტია ) is a highland townlet ('' daba'') in northwest Georgia, at an elevation of in the Caucasus Mountains. General information Mestia is located in the Svaneti region of Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti province (''mkhare''), ...

and

Lentekhi Lentekhi ( ka, ლენტეხი, ) is a small town and Lentekhi District's (Raion) capital in Georgia's western region of Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti, 323 km northwest to the nation's capital Tbilisi. Situated on the southern slope ...

of Georgia, along the

Enguri The Enguri ( ka, ენგური, tr, xmf, ინგირი, ingiri, ab, Егры, ''Egry'' russian: Ингури, ''Inguri'') is a river in western Georgia. It is long, and has a drainage basin of .Tskhenistsqali Tskhenistsqali ( ka, ცხენისწყალი, ''Cxenisċqali'', also: ''Tskhenistskali'') is a river in northern Georgia. Its source is in the main range of the Caucasus Mountains, in the easternmost part of the Lentekhi Municipality, l ...

and Kodori rivers. Some Svan speakers live in the

Kodori Valley , ab, Кәыдырҭа , photo = , photo_caption = , map = Caucasus mountains#Georgia#Abkhazia , map_image = , map_caption = , location = , country_type = International ...

of the de facto independent republic of Abkhazia. Although conditions there make it difficult to reliably establish their numbers, there are only an estimated 2,500 Svan individuals living there.DoBeS (Dokumentation Bedrohter Sprachen, Documentation of Endangered Languages)
/ref> The language is used in familiar and casual social communication. It has no written standard or official status. Most speakers also speak Georgian. The language is regarded as being endangered, as proficiency in it among young people is limited.

History

Svan is the most differentiated member of the four South-Caucasian languages and is believed to have split off in the

2nd millennium BC The 2nd millennium BC spanned the years 2000 BC to 1001 BC. In the Ancient Near East, it marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. The Ancient Near Eastern cultures are well within the historical era: The first half of the mil ...

or earlier, about one thousand years before Georgian and

Mingrelian Mingrelian may refer to: *the Mingrelians *the Mingrelian language Mingrelian or Megrelian (, ) is a Kartvelian language spoken in Western Georgia (regions of Mingrelia and Abkhazia), primarily by the Mingrelians. The language was also called kol ...

split from each other.

Dialects

The Svan language is divided into the following dialects and subdialects: *Upper Svan (about 15,000 speakers) **Upper Bal:

Ushguli Ushguli ( ka, უშგული) is a community of five villages located at the head of the Enguri gorge in Svaneti, Georgia. Ushguli is one of the highest continuously inhabited settlements in Europe. Compared to somewhat more developed towns li ...

, Kala, Ipar, Mulakh,

, Lenzer, Latal. **Lower Bal: Becho, Tskhumar, Etser, Par, Chubekh, Lakham. *Lower Svan (about 12,000 speakers) **Lashkhian: Lashkh. **Lentekhian:

, Kheled, Khopur, Rtskhmelur, Cholur

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant inventory of Svan is more or less the same as that of Old Georgian. That is, compared to Modern Georgian, it also has , and , but the labiodental fricative only appears as an allophone of in the Ln dialect. Furthermore, the uvular consonants and are realized as affricates, i.e. and .

Vowels

The vowel inventory of Svan varies between different dialects. For instance, Proto-Svan phonemic long vowels occur in the Upper Bal, Cholur and Lashx dialects, but have been lost in the Lent’ex and Lower Bal dialects. Compared to Georgian, Svan also have a central or back unrounded high vowel (realized as , the low front (except for Lashx) and the front rounded vowels and (also except for Lashx). The front rounded vowels are often realized as diphthongs and and are therefore sometimes not treated as separate phonemes.

Alphabet

The alphabet, illustrated above, is similar to the Mingrelian alphabet, with a few additional letters otherwise obsolete in the

Georgian script The Georgian scripts are the three writing systems used to write the Georgian language: Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli. Although the systems differ in appearance, their letters share the same names and alphabetical order and are writte ...

: * ჶ * ჴ * ჸ * ჲ * ჳ * ჷ * ჱ These are supplemented by diacritics on the vowels (the umlaut for front vowels and macron for length), though those are not normally written. The digraphs * ჳი ("wi") * ჳე ("we") are used in the Lower Bal and Lentekh dialects, and occasionally in Upper Bal; these sounds do not occur in Lashkh dialect.

References

Notes

General references

* * *

External links

Svan at TITUS database

(includes audio/video samples).

at Omniglot
Svan Youth literature in Svan language
{{DEFAULTSORT:Svan Language Agglutinative languages Definitely endangered languages Kartvelian languages Languages of Georgia (country) Languages of Abkhazia Svaneti