| Khwarshi | |
|---|---|
| Khwarshi–Inkhoqwari | |
| аᴴкьи́зас мыцaⁿƛ̓ízas myc kedaes hikwa | |
| Pronunciation | [ãt͡ɬʼizasmɨt͡s] [kedaeshikwa] |
| Native to | North Caucasus |
| Region | SouthwesternDagestan[1][2] |
| Ethnicity | Khwarshi people |
Native speakers | 3,300 (2020 census)[3] 8,500 (2005-2009)[4] |
| Dialects | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | khv |
| Glottolog | khva1239 |
| ELP | Khvarshi |
 Khwarshi | |
 Khvarshi is classified as Definitely Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010) | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Khwarshi (also spelledXvarshi, Khvarshi, Khvarshi:аᴴкьи́зас мыц[6]) is aNortheast Caucasian language spoken in theTsumadinsky-,Kizilyurtovsky- andKhasavyurtovsky districts ofDagestan by theKhwarshi people. The exact number of speakers is not known, but the linguistZaira Khalilova, who has carried out fieldwork in the period from 2005 to 2009, gives the figure 8,500.[4] Other sources give much lower figures, such asEthnologue with the figure 1,870[1] and the latestpopulation census of Russia with the figure 3,296.[3] The low figures are because many Khwarshi have registered themselves as beingAvar speakers,[4] because Avar is theirliterary language.
There are sixdialects of the Khwarshi language based on their geographical distribution. The dialects are: Upper and Lower Inkhokwari, Kwantlada, Santlada, Khwayni and Khwarshi Proper, originating in their respective villages in theTsumadinsky district. Due to emigration, Kwantlada-, Upper and Lower Inkhokwari–speaking communities also exist inOktyabrskoe,[clarification needed] Santlada-speaking communities exist inPervomayskoe and Khwarshi Proper–speaking communities exist inMutsalaul.
Thephoneme inventory of Khwarshi is large, with about 87 distinctphonemes. Notable phonological processes includeassimilation,vowel harmony, andnasalization occurring.[7] Thesyllabic structure of Khwarshi is also quite simple, with (C)V(C) being the most common structure, of which V(C) is only permitted word-initially.[8]
Khwarshi has a total number of 21vowelphonemes, includingvowel length andnasalization.[9]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
All the vowels above also have a long counterpart, which are always in stressed syllables. All vowels can occur in closed syllables (i.e. (C)VC), and all except/ɨ/ occur in open syllables (i.e. (C)V)./ɨ/ does not occur in theKhwarshi Proper andInkhokwari dialects.[10]
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | ĩ | ũ |
| Close-mid | ẽ | õ |
| Open | ã |
Khwarshi has 66consonants:[9]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | |||||||||||||||||||
| plain | phar. | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | pal. | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | phar. | plain | lab. | phar. | phar.+lab. | plain | phar. | |||
| Nasal | m | mˤ | n | |||||||||||||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | pˤ | t | (tʷ) | k | kʷ | kˤ | q | qʷ | qˤ | |||||||||
| voiced | b | bˤ | d | dʷ | g | gʷ | gˤ | |||||||||||||
| ejective | pʼ | pˤʼ | tʼ | tʷʼ | kʼ | kʷʼ | kˤʼ | qʼ | qʷʼ | qˤʼ | qˤʷʼ | |||||||||
| Affricate | voiceless | t͡s | t͡ɬ | t͡ʃ | ||||||||||||||||
| ejective | t͡sʼ | t͡sʷʼ | t͡ɬʼ | t͡ɬʷʼ | t͡ʃʼ | t͡ʃʷʼ | ||||||||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | sʷ | ɬ | ʃ | ʃʷ | x | χ | χʷ | χˤ | χˤʷ | ħ | h | hˤ | ||||||
| voiced | z | zʷ | ʒ | ʒʷ | ʁ | ʁʷ | ʁˤ | ʁˤʷ | ʕ | |||||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||||||||||
| Approximant | l | lʲ | j | w | ||||||||||||||||
It is not clear whether/tʷ/ is present in Khwarshi or not, asZaira Khalilova does not include it in her chart of consonants, but nevertheless provides a minimal pair indicating there is a distinction between/t/ and/tʷ/:/eta/"touch" and/etʷa/"fly".[11] Therefore, it is shown in parentheses in the chart above.
All the consonants can be found in nativevocabulary, but some of them are however more rare than others, and some are mostly found inloanwords, such as/ʕ/ which almost only occur in loanwords ofArabic origin. Another example is/x/, found only in loanwords ofAvar origin.[12]
Thepalatalized consonant and all thepharyngealized consonants are not found inKhwarshi Proper, but can be found in all the other dialects. Consider for instance theKhwarshi Proper word/χililːu/"drunk", which in the other dialects is/χˤilʲilʲːu/.[13]
Gemination is quite a commonphonological process in Khwarshi, caused bygrammatical processes. Gemination only occurs intervocally and not all consonants geminate. Which consonants that geminate is different according to which processes they are a part of, and it depends on the dialect as well.[14]
Below is a list of some of the processes causing gemination:
Inloanwords, geminated consonants are normally non-geminated, when adopted into the Khwarshi language. For example, theAvar word/kʼːara/"mosquito" is found as/kʼara/ in Khwarshi. The same goes for words ofTindi origin such as/kʼːanu/"small", which is found as/kʼanu/ in Khwarshi. Another interesting aspect of loanwords of Tindi origin in the Khwarshi language is that the consonants areejectivized when they enter the Khwarshi language, e.g.Tindi/t͡sːikʷːa/"small intestine" > Khwarshi/t͡sʼikʷʼa/.[15]
| А а | Б б | В в | Г г | Гъ гъ | Гь гь | ГӀ гӀ | Д д |
| Е е | Ж ж | З з | И и | Й й | К к | Къ къ | Кь кь |
| КӀ кӀ | Л л | Лъ лъ | ЛӀ лӀ | М м | Н н | О о | П п |
| ПӀ пӀ | Р р | С с | Т т | ТӀ тӀ | У у | Х х | Хъ хъ |
| Хь хь | ХӀ хӀ | Ц ц | ЦӀ цӀ | Ч ч | ЧӀ чӀ | Ш ш | Ъ ъ |
| Ы ы | Ь ь | Э э |
Additional letters: аᵸ, аӀ, еᵸ, еӀ, иᵸ, иӀ, ль, оᵸ, оӀ, уᵸ, уӀ, эᵸ
Khwarshinouns inflect forcase, of which there are 50, andnumber, singular or plural, and belong to one of fivegenders, or rathernoun classes. That a noun belongs to a specific class cannot be seen on the noun itself, but only throughagreement.
There are five noun classes in the singular, but only a distinction betweenhuman andnon-human in the plural, themale human andfemale human having merged intohuman, and the remaining classes intonon-human.[16]
| Class | Description | Singular | Plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prefix | Infix | Suffix | Prefix | Infix | Suffix | ||
| I | Male human | ∅-2 | ⟨w⟩ | -w | b-, m-1 | ⟨b⟩ | -b |
| II | Female human | j- | ⟨j⟩ | -j | |||
| III | Inanimate objects, and animals | b-, m-1 | ⟨b⟩ | -b | l-, n-1 | ⟨r⟩ | -l |
| IV | Inanimate objects, and animate objects | l-, n-1 | ⟨r⟩ | -l | |||
| V | Inanimate objects, and names of young | j- | ⟨j⟩ | -j | |||
The noun classes are visible through agreement inadjectives,adverbs,postpositions anddemonstrative pronouns, and alsoverbs if the verb begins with avowel. There are, however, some exceptions, like withirregular verbs in other languages. Below are some examples of such agreement in postpositions, demonstrative pronouns, verbs and adjectives, respectively. Notice however, that a verb is present in all of the examples but the first, while the third example has a special focus on verbs.
| milʲːo | b-ot͡ɬot͡ɬʼo | heⁿʃe | gul-o |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2pl.gen2 | iii-in.middle | bookiii | put-imp |
| "Put the book between you!" | |||
| o⟨w⟩enu | ʒikʼo | ∅-otʼqʼ-i | ilʲ-ːo | at͡ɬ-a |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ⟨i⟩that | mani | i-come-pst.w | 1pl.obl-gen2 | village-in |
| "That man came to our village" | ||||
| ∅-ot͡ɬot͡ɬʼo-so-ho | j-ot͡ɬot͡ɬʼo-so | j-ez-un |
|---|---|---|
| i-in.middle-def-apud | ii-in.middle-def | ii-take-pst.uw |
| "The middle (brother) married the (other) middle (sister)." | ||
| b-et͡ʃ-un-t͡ɬo | b-et͡ʃ-un-aj-t͡ɬo | bert͡sina-b | kandaba |
|---|---|---|---|
| hpl-be-pst.uw-narr | hpl-be-pst.uw-neg-narr | beautiful-hpl | girl.pl.abs |
| "Once upon a time there were beautiful girls" | |||
As the noun class of a noun cannot be seen on the noun itself, it should not be represented in aliteral translation. In the examples above, however, the noun class of certain nouns is shown, albeit insuperscript to indicate that it is not represented in the original Khwarshi sentence. The only nouns that have their noun classes indicated here are those with which the other words agree with.
There are 8 grammatical cases in Khwarshi, and 42 locative cases. The grammatical cases are:absolutive,ergative, twogenitive,instrumental,durative,vocative andcausal. The remaining cases, the locative cases, are a bit more complex, as they each consist of both a part that has something to do with orientation and a part that has something to do with direction. So while theergative case has a singlesuffix /-(j)i/, thesuperversative case consists of two suffixes, thesuperessive /-t͡ɬʼo/ plus theversative /-ʁul/, becoming /-t͡ɬʼoʁul/.[17]
Below are the case endings of the grammatical cases.
| Absolutive | Ergative | Genitive 1 | Genitive 2 | Instrumental | Durative | Vocative | Causal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -∅ | -(j)i1 | -s | -lo, -la | -z | -d | -ju | -t͡ɬeru |
Below are the case endings of the locative cases.
| Essive | Lative | Versative | Ablative | Translative | Terminative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Superessive | -t͡ɬʼo | -t͡ɬʼo-l | -t͡ɬʼo-ʁul | -t͡ɬʼo-zi | -t͡ɬʼo-ʁuʒaz | -t͡ɬʼo-qʼa |
| Subessive | -t͡ɬ | -t͡ɬ-ul | -t͡ɬ-ʁul | -t͡ɬ-zi | -t͡ɬ-ʁuʒaz | -t͡ɬ-qʼa |
| Inessive | -ma | -ma-l | -ma-ʁul | -ma-zi | -ma-ʁuʒaz | -ma-qʼa |
| Interessive | -ɬ | -ɬ-ul | -ɬ-ʁul | -ɬ-zi | -ɬ-ʁuʒaz | -ɬ-qʼa |
| Adessive | -ho | -ho-l | -ho-ʁul | -ho-zi | -ho-ʁuʒaz | -ho-qʼa |
| Apudessive | -ʁo | -ʁo-l | -ʁo-ʁul | -ʁo-zi | -ʁo-ʁuʒaz | -ʁo-qʼa |
| Contessive | -qo | -qo-l | -qo-ʁul | -qo-zi | -qo-ʁuʒaz | -qo-qʼa |
Khwarshiverbs normally consist of a stem, anagreementprefix indicatingnoun class and number of the relevant nouns, and asuffix showingtense,aspect,mood, or the like. Only about one fourth of the Khwarshi verbs show agreement, all of them beginning with avowel. There is a small number of verbs beginning with a vowel that do not show agreement. Verbs beginning with aconsonant do not show agreement.[18]
The verbs are very regular in Khwarshi, the onlyirregular verb being theauxiliary verb /goli/"to be", which takes neither a prefix nor a suffix and has only severalnon-finite forms. In thepast- andfuture tense, however, the verb /-et͡ʃ-/"to be situated" is used instead of /goli/, which may take both a prefix and a suffix.[19]
The proposedNorth Caucasian language family comprises theNortheast andNorthwest Caucasian language families. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Northwest (Pontic) |
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| Northeast (Caspian) |
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Italics indicateextinct languages | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Caucasian (areal) |
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| Indo- European |
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| Turkic |
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| Others | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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