Ingush language

Ingush
Ingush
гӀалгӀай мотт (ghalghaj mott)
Pronunciation	[ʁəlʁɑj mot]
Native to	North Caucasus
Region	Ingushetia, Chechnya
Ethnicity	Ingush
Native speakers	330,000 (2010–2017)
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Nakh Vainakh (Chechen–Ingush) Ingush; ; ;
Writing system	Cyrillic (current) ; Arabic, Latin (historical)
Official status
Official language in	Russia Ingushetia;
Language codes
ISO 639-2	inh
ISO 639-3	inh
Glottolog	ingu1240
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Ingush (/ˈɪŋɡʊʃ/; ГӀалгӀай мотт, Ghalghaj mott, pronounced [ʁəlʁɑj mot]) is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by about 500,000 people, known as the Ingush, across a region covering the Russian republics of Ingushetia and Chechnya.

Classification[edit]

Ingush and Chechen, together with Bats, constitute the Nakh branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. There is pervasive passive bilingualism between Ingush and Chechen.^[2]

Geographic distribution[edit]

Ingush is spoken by about 413,000 people (2002),^[1] primarily across a region in the Caucasus covering parts of Russia, primarily Ingushetia and Chechnya. Speakers can also be found in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Belgium, Norway, Turkey and Jordan.

Official status[edit]

Ingush is, alongside Russian, an official language of Ingushetia, a federal subject of Russia.

Writing system[edit]

Ingush became a written language with an Arabic-based writing system at the beginning of the 20th century. After the October Revolution it first used a Latin alphabet, which was later replaced by Cyrillic.

А а	Аь аь	Б б	В в	Г г	ГӀ гӏ	Д д	Е е
Ё ё	Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й	К к	Кх кх	Къ къ
КӀ кӏ	Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п	ПӀ пӏ	Р р
С с	Т т	ТӀ тӏ	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Хь хь	ХӀ хӏ
Ц ц	ЦӀ цӏ	Ч ч	ЧӀ чӏ	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ	Ы ы
Ь ь	Э э	Ю ю	Я я	Яь яь	Ӏ ӏ

Phonology[edit]

Vowels[edit]

	Front	Central	Back
High	и [i]		у [u]
Mid	э [e]	? [ə]	о [o]
Low	аь [æ]		а [ɑː], [ɑ]

The diphthongs are иэ /ie/, уо /uo/, оа /oɑ/, ий /ij/, эи /ei/, ои /oi/, уи /ui/, ов /ow/, ув /uw/.

Consonants[edit]

The consonants of Ingush are as follows,^[3] including the Latin orthography developed by Johanna Nichols:

		Labial	Alveolar		Postalveolar/ Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Epiglottal	Glottal
		Labial	central	sibilant	Postalveolar/ Palatal	palatalized	plain	Uvular	Epiglottal	Glottal
Nasal		м m [m]	н n [n]
Plosive	voiceless	п p [p]	т t [t]	ц c [t͡s]	ч ch [t͡ʃ]	к kj [kʲ]	к k [k]	кх q [q]	Ӏ w [ʡ]	ъ ʼ [ʔ]
	voiced	б b [b]	д d [d]			г gj [ɡʲ]	г g [ɡ]
	ejective	пӀ pʼ [pʼ]	тӀ tʼ [tʼ]	цӀ cʼ [t͡sʼ]	чӀ chʼ [t͡ʃʼ]	кӀ kjʼ [kʲʼ]	кӀ kʼ [kʼ]	къ qʼ [qʼ]
Fricative	voiceless	ф f [f]		с s [s]	ш sh [ʃ]		х x[χ]		хь hw [ʜ]	хӀ h [h]
Fricative	voiced	в v [ʋ]		з z [z]	ж zh [ʒ]			гӀ gh [ʁ]
Approximant		в v [ʋ]	л l [l]		й j [j]
Trill	voiceless		рхӀ rh [r̥]
Trill	voiced		р r [r]

Dialects[edit]

Ingush is not divided into dialects with the exception of Galain-Ch'azh (native name: Галайн-ЧӀаж), which is considered to be transitional between Chechen and Ingush.

Grammar[edit]

Ingush is a nominative–accusative language in its syntax, though it has ergative morphology.^[4]

Case[edit]

The most recent and in-depth analysis of the language^[5] shows eight cases: absolutive, ergative, genitive, dative, allative, instrumental, lative and comparative.

Cases	Singular	Plural
Absolutive	-⌀	-azh / -ii, -i³
Ergative	-uo / -z, -aa¹	-asha / –azh
Genitive	-a, -n²	-ii, -i
Dative	-na, aa²	-azh-ta
Allative	-ga	-azh-ka
Instrumental	-ca	-azh-ca
Lative	-gh	-egh
Comparative	-l	-el

-uo is the only productive form. -z appears with personal names, kin terms, and other nouns referring to humans. -aa occurs with some declensions and is increasingly unproductive in colloquial use.
Allomorph after vowels
The choice of -azh vs. -ii is lexically determined for the nominative, but other cases are predictable.

Tenses^[6][edit]

Stem	Suffix	Tense	Example
Infinitive Stem	{-a}	Infinitive (INF)	laaca
(INFS)	{-a}	Imperative (IMP)	laaca
Present Stem	---	Generic Present (PRES)	loac
(unmarked)	{-az&}	Simultaneous Converb (SCV)	loacaz&
	{-ar}	Imperfect (IMPF)	loacar
	{-agDa}	FUTURE (FUT)	loacadda
Past Stem	{-ar}	Witnessed Past (WIT)	leacar
(PAST)	{-aa}/{-na}	Anterior Converb (ACV)	leacaa
	{-aa} + {-D} / {-na} + {-D}	Perfect (PERF)	leacaad
	{-aa} + {-Dar} / {-na} + {-Dar}	Pluperfect (PLUP)	leacaadar

Numerals[edit]

Like many Northeast Caucasian languages, Ingush uses a vigesimal system, where numbers lower than twenty are counted as in a base-ten system, but higher decads are base-twenty.

Orthography	Phonetic	Value	Composition
cwa	[t͡sʕʌ]	1
shi	[ʃɪ]	2
qo	[qo]	3
d.i'¹	[dɪʔ]	4
pxi	[pxɪ]	5
jaalx	[jalx]	6
vorh	[vʷor̥]	7
baarh	[bar̥]	8
iis	[is]	9
itt	[itː]	10
cwaitt	[t͡sʕɛtː]	11	1+10
shiitt	[ʃitː]	12	2+10
qoitt	[qoitː]	13	3+10
d.iitt¹	[ditː]	14	4+10
pxiitt	[pxitː]	15	5+10
jalxett	[jʌlxɛtː]	16	6+10
vuriit	[vʷʊritː]	17	7+10
bareitt	[bʌreitː]	18	8+10
tq'iesta	[tqʼiːestə̆]	19
tq'o	[tqʼo]	20
tq'ea itt	[tqʼɛ̯æjitː]	30	20+10
shouztq'a	[ʃouztqʼə̆]	40	2×20
shouztq'aj itt	[ʃouztqʼetː]	50	2×20+10
bwea	[bʕɛ̯æ]	100
shi bwea	[ʃɪ bʕɛ̯æ]	200	2×100
ezar	[ɛzər]	1000	loan from Persian

Note that "four" and its derivatives begin with noun-class marker. d- is merely the default value.

Pronouns[edit]

	1sg	1plexcl	1plincl	2sg	2pl	3sg	3pl
Nom.	so	txo	vai	hwo	sho/shu	yz	yzh
Gen.	sy	txy	vai	hwa	shyn	cyn/cun	caar
Dat.	suona	txuona	vaina	hwuona	shoana	cynna	caana
Erg.	aaz	oaxa	vai	wa	oasha	cuo	caar
All.	suoga	txuoga	vaiga	hwuoga	shuoga	cynga	caarga
Abl.	suogara	txuogara	vaigara	hwuogara	shuogara	cyngara	caargara
Instr.	suoca(a)	txuoca(a)	vaica(a)	hwuoca	shuoca(a)	cynca	caarca(a)
Lat.	sogh	txogh	vaigh	hwogh	shogh	cogh	caaregh
Csn.	sol	txol	vail	hwol	shol	cul/cyl	caarel

Word order[edit]

In Ingush, "for main clauses, other than episode-initial and other all-new ones, verb-second order is most common. The verb, or the finite part of a compound verb or analytic tense form (i.e. the light verb or the auxiliary), follows the first word or phrase in the clause".^[7]

muusaa

Musa

vy

V.PROG

hwuona

2sg.DAT

telefon

telephone

jettazh

striking

'Musa is telephoning you.'

References[edit]

^ ^a ^b Ingush at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
^ Johanna Nichols, Ronald L. Sprouse, Ingush-English and English-Ingush dictionary. p 1
^ Johanna Nichols, Ingush Grammar (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011) ISBN 978-0-520-09877-0.
^ Johanna Nichols, Case in Ingush Syntax and Johanna Nichols, Ingush Grammar (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). ISBN 0-520-09877-3.
^ Johanna Nichols, Ingush Grammar.
^ Zev Handel, Ingush inflectional verb morphology: a synchronic classification and historical analysis with comparison to Chechen http://faculty.washington.edu/zhandel/Handel_Ingush.pdf.
^ Nichols, Johanna. (2011). Ingush Grammar. Berkeley: The University of California Press. Pp. 678ff.

External links[edit]

[e25-1] Ingush at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

[2] Johanna Nichols, Ronald L. Sprouse, Ingush-English and English-Ingush dictionary. p 1

[3] Johanna Nichols, Ingush Grammar (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011) ISBN 978-0-520-09877-0.

[4] Johanna Nichols, Case in Ingush Syntax and Johanna Nichols, Ingush Grammar (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). ISBN 0-520-09877-3.

[5] Johanna Nichols, Ingush Grammar.

[6] Zev Handel, Ingush inflectional verb morphology: a synchronic classification and historical analysis with comparison to Chechen http://faculty.washington.edu/zhandel/Handel_Ingush.pdf.

[7] Nichols, Johanna. (2011). Ingush Grammar. Berkeley: The University of California Press. Pp. 678ff.

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v t e Languages of Russia
Federal language	Russian
State languages of federal subjects	Abaza Adyghe Aghul Altai Northern Altai Southern Altai Avar Azerbaijani Bashkir Buryat Chechen Chuvash Crimean Tatar Dargwa Ingush Kabardian Kalmyk Karachay-Balkar Khakas Komi Kumyk Lak Lezgian Mari Hill Meadow Mordvin Erzya Moksha Nogai Ossetian Rutul Yakut/Sakha Tabasaran Tat Tatar Tsakhur Tuvan Udmurt Ukrainian
Languages with official status	Chukchi Dolgan Even Evenki Finnish Karelian Kazakh Khanty Komi-Permyak Mansi Nenets Selkup Veps Yukaghir Northern Yukaghir Southern Yukaghir
Scripts	Cyrillic¹ Cyrillic Braille Latin script² Mongolian script (Buryat script, Kalmyk script)²
¹ In Russia, the Cyrillic alphabet is officially supported. ² For other, non-Cyrillic alphabets, separate federal laws are required. Languages of Russia Wikipedia in languages of Russia Mass media by language of Russia

v t e Northeast Caucasian languages
Avar–Andic	Andic Akhvakh Andi Bagvalal Botlikh Chamalal Godoberi Karata Tindi Avar
Tsezic	Bezhta Hinukh Hunzib Khwarshi Tsez
Dargin	Chirag Dargwa Itsari Kaitag Kubachi
Lezgic	Aghul Archi Budukh Kryts Lezgian Rutul Tabasaran Tsakhur Udi Caucasian Albanian
Nakh	Bats Vainakh Chechen Ingush
Other	Khinalug Lak
Italics indicate extinct languages