Bats language
Bats | |
---|---|
batsba motjiti | |
Native to | Georgia |
Region | Zemo-Alvani in Kakheti |
Native speakers | 3,400 (2000)[1] far fewer than 3,000 active (2007) |
Georgian script | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | bbl |
Glottolog | bats1242 |
ELP | Batsbi |
Bats (also Batsi, Batsbi, Batsb, Batsaw, Tsova-Tush) is the language of the Bats people, a Caucasian minority group, and is part of the Nakh family of Caucasian languages. It had 2,500 to 3,000 speakers in 1975.
There is only one dialect. It exists only as a spoken language, as the Bats people use Georgian as their written language. The language is not mutually intelligible with either Chechen or Ingush, the other two members of the Nakh family.
History
Until the middle of the 19th century, the Tsovians lived in Tushetia, the mountain region of Northeast Georgia. They were expected to have come settled with Tush people in mid centuries later became assimilated with other Tush people and now are known as one of four tush subgroups. The Tsova Gorge in Tushetia was inhabited by four Bats communities: the Sagirta, Otelta, Mozarta and Indurta. Later they settled on the Kakhetia Plain, in the village of Zemo-Alvani, where they still live. Administratively they are part of the Akhmeta district of Georgia.
Classification
Bats belongs to the Nakh family of Northeast Caucasian languages.
Geographic distribution
Most speakers of Bats live in the village of Zemo-Alvani, on the Kakhetia Plain, in the Akhmeta district of Georgia. There are some families of Bats in Tbilisi and other bigger towns in Georgia.
Phonology
Vowels
Bats has a typical triangular five-vowel system with short–long contrast (except for u, which has no long form). Bats also has a number of diphthongs, ei, ui, oi, ai, ou, and au.[2] All vowels and diphthongs have nasalized allophones that are the result of phonetic and morphophonemic processes; this is represented by a superscript n, as in kʼnateⁿ boy-GEN.
Front | Back | |
---|---|---|
High | i, iː | u |
Mid | e [ɛ], eː | o, oː |
Low | a, aː |
Consonants
Bats has a relatively typical consonant inventory for a Northeast Caucasian language. Unlike its close relatives, Chechen and Ingush, Bats has retained the lateral fricative /ɬ/.
Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal(ized) | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ||||||||
Plosive | aspirated | lenis | pʰ | tʰ | t͜sʰ | t͡ʃʰ | kʰ | qʰ | ʔ | |
voiceless | fortis | tː | qː | |||||||
voiced | b | d | d͜z | d͡ʒ | g | |||||
ejective | lenis | pʼ | tʼ | t͜sʼ | t͡ʃʼ | kʼ | qʼ | |||
fortis | tːʼ | qːʼ | ||||||||
Fricative | voiceless | lenis | s | ʃ | x | ħ | h | |||
fortis | sː | xː | ||||||||
lateral | ɬ | |||||||||
voiced | v | z | ʒ | ɣ | ʕ | |||||
Approximant | lenis | l | j | |||||||
fortis | lː | |||||||||
Flap | ɾ |
Grammar
![]() | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2012) |
The first grammar of Bats – Über die Thusch-Sprache – was compiled by the German orientalist Anton Schiefner (1817–1879) making it into the first grammar of any indigenous Caucasian languages based on sound scientific principles.[4]
Noun classes
Traditional analyses posit that Bats has eight noun classes, the highest number among the Northeast Caucasian languages—however, a more-recent analysis gives only five classes.[3] This analysis (not unlike analyses of Lak) yields the grouping shown below:
Label | Sg. | Pl. | Description | Members |
---|---|---|---|---|
M | v | b | male humans | mar "husband" ʕuv "shepherd" voħ "son" |
F | j | d | female humans | nan "mother" pstʼu "wife" joħ "daughter" |
D | d | d | various | bader "child" kʼuit’ĭ "cat" dokʼ "heart" ditx "meat" |
Bd | b | d | animals | carkʼ "tooth" maiqĭ "bread" qʼar "rain" |
J | j | j | various | pħu "dog" ča "bear" matx "sun" |
*Bd/J | b | j | body parts (15 nouns) | bak "fist" bʕarkʼ "eye" čʼqʼempʼŏ ‘throat’ |
*D/J | d | j | body parts (4 nouns) | batʼr "lip", larkʼ "ear" tʼotʼ "hand", čʼamaǧ "cheek" |
*B/B | b | b | only 3 nouns | borag "knit slipper" čekam "boot" kakam "autumn wool" |
Under this analysis, the additional three classes are examples of inquorate gender, where the number of items displaying this behavior are insufficient to constitute an independent grouping. Furthermore, they can be explained as inflecting as one class in the singular, and another in the plural, e.g. the B/B group agrees as if it belonged to Bd class in the singular, but male human class in the plural.
Noun cases
Batsbi makes use of nine noun cases total, though in the majority of nouns the ergative and instrumental case have a common form.
Cases | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nominative | nekʼ | nekʼi | cokʼal | cokʼli |
Genitive | nekʼen | nekʼan | cokʼlen | cokʼlan |
Dative | nekʼen | nekʼin | cokʼlen | cokʼlin |
Ergative, Instrumental |
nekʼev | nekʼiv | cokʼlev | cokʼliv |
Contacting | nek’ex | nekʼax | cokʼlex | cokʼlax |
Allative | nekʼegŏ | nekʼigŏ | cokʼlegŏ | cokʼligŏ |
Adverbial | nekʼeǧ | nekʼiǧ | cokʼleǧ | cokʼliǧ |
Commitive | nekʼcin, nekʼecin |
nekʼicin | cokʼlecin | cokʼlicin |
“knife” | “fox” |
Numerals
Like most of its relatives, Batsbi's numerals are vigesimal, using 20 as a common base. This is mainly evident in the construction of higher decads, so that 40 šauztʼqʼ formed from 2 × 20 and 200 icʼatʼqʼ is 10 × 20.[3] When modifying nominals, the numeral precedes the noun it modifies.
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In Bats, as in the its closest relatives Chechen and Ingush, the number Dʕivʔ "four" actually begins with a noun-class marker, represented by D (by default, or another capital for the other classes). This marker will agree in class with the class of the nominal which the number modifies, even if that nominal is not overtly expressed and only apparent through pragmatic or discursive context, as in Vʕivʔev "four (males)". This is seen in the word "four" itself as well as its derivatives.
Verbs
Bats has explicit inflections for agentivity of a verb; it makes a distinction between as woʒe I fell down (i.e. through no fault of my own) and so woʒe I fell down (i.e. and it was my own fault).
References
- ^ Bats at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ HG1994[full citation needed]
- ^ a b c Holisky, Dee Ann and Gagua, Rusudan, 1994. "Tsova-Tush (Batsbi)", in The indigenous languages of the Caucasus Vol 4, Rieks Smeets, editor. Caravan Books, pp. 147-212
- ^ Kevin Tuite (2007). The rise and fall and revival of the Ibero-Caucasian hypothesis, pp. 7-8. Historiographia Linguistica, 35 #1.