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Chuvash
Чӑвашла, Čăvašla
Pronunciation
Native to	Russia
Region	Chuvashia and adjacent areas
Ethnicity	Chuvash
Native speakers	1.1 million (2010 census)
Language family	Turkic Oghur (Lir) Chuvash
Early form	Bulgar
Writing system	Cyrillic
Official status
Official language in	Russia  Chuvashia
Language codes
ISO 639-1	cv
ISO 639-2	chv
ISO 639-3	chv
Glottolog	chuv1255
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Chuvash ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); Template:IPA-cv) is a Turkic language spoken in central Russia, primarily in the Chuvash Republic and adjacent areas. It is the only surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic languages, and thus makes up one full half of the language family. While many Turkic languages demonstrate mutual intelligibility to varying degrees, Chuvash has diverged considerably from the other languages in the group.

The writing system for the Chuvash language is based on the Cyrillic script, employing all of the letters used in the Russian alphabet, and adding four letters of its own: Ӑ, Ӗ, Ҫ and Ӳ.

Use

Chuvash is the native language of the Chuvash people and an official language of Chuvashia. It is spoken by 1,640,000 persons in Russia and another 34,000 in other countries. 86% of ethnic Chuvash and 8% of the people of other ethnicities living in Chuvashia claimed knowledge of Chuvash language during the 2002 census. Despite that, and although Chuvash is taught at schools and sometimes used in the media, it is considered endangered, because Russian dominates in most spheres of life and few children learning the language are likely to become active users.

A fairly significant production and publication of literature in Chuvash still continues. According to UNESCO's Index Translationum, at least 202 books translated from Chuvash were published in other languages (mostly Russian) since ca. 1979. However, as with most of other languages of the former USSR, most of the translation activity took place before the dissolution of the USSR: out of the 202 translations, 170 books were published in the USSR, and just 17, in the post-1991 Russia (mostly, in the 1990s). A similar situation takes place with the translation of books from other languages (mostly Russian) into Chuvash (the total of 175 titles published since ca. 1979, but just 18 out of them, in the post-1991 Russia).

History

Chuvash is the most distinctive of the Turkic languages and cannot be understood by speakers of other Turkic tongues. Chuvash is classified, alongside the extinct languages Bulgar and Khazar, as the only remaining member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family. Since the surviving literary records for the non-Chuvash members of Oghuric are scant, the exact position of Chuvash within the Oghuric family cannot be determined.

The Oghuric branch is distinguished from the rest of the Turkic family (the Common Turkic languages) by two sound changes: r corresponding to Common Turkic z, and l corresponding to Common Turkic ş.

Formerly, scholars considered Chuvash not properly a Turkic language at all but, rather, a Turkicized Finno-Ugric (Uralic) language.

Writing systems

Current

1873–1938

The modern Chuvash alphabet was devised in 1873 by school inspector Ivan Yakovlevich Yakovlev.

In 1938, the alphabet underwent significant modification which brought it to its current form.

Previous systems

The most ancient writing system, known as the Old Turkic alphabet, disappeared after the Volga Bulgars converted to Islam. Later, the Arabic script was adopted. After the Mongol invasion, writing degraded. After Peter the Great's reforms Chuvash elites disappeared, blacksmiths and some other crafts were prohibited for non-Russian nations, the Chuvash were educated in Russian, while writing in runes recurred with simple folks.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants are the following (the corresponding Cyrillic letters are in brackets): /p/ (п), /t/ (т), /k/ (к), /tɕ/ (ч), /s/ (с), /ʂ/ (ш), /ɕ/ (ҫ), /χ/ (х), /ʋ/ (в), /m/ (м), /n/ (н), /l/ (л), /r/ (р), /j/ (й). The stops, sibilants and affricates are voiceless and fortes but become lenes (sounding similar to voiced) in intervocalic position and after liquids, nasals and semi-vowels. Аннепе sounds like annebe, but кушакпа sounds like kuzhakpa. However, geminate consonants do not undergo this lenition. Furthermore, the voiced consonants occurring in Russian are used in modern Russian-language loans. Consonants also become palatalized before and after front vowels.

Vowels

According to Krueger (1961), the Chuvash vowel system is as follows (the precise IPA symbols are chosen based on his description since he uses a different transcription).

András Róna-Tas (1997) provides a somewhat different description, also with a partly idiosyncratic transcription. The following table is based on his version, with additional information from Petrov (2001). Again, the IPA symbols are not directly taken from the works so they could be inaccurate.

The vowels ӑ and ӗ are described as reduced, thereby differing in quantity from the rest. In unstressed positions, they often resemble a schwa or tend to be dropped altogether in fast speech. At times, especially when stressed, they may be somewhat rounded and sound similar to /o/ and /ø/.

Additionally, ɔ (о) occurs in loanwords from Russian where the syllable is unstressed in Russian.

Dialects

There are two dialects of Chuvash: Viryal or Upper (which has both o and u) and Anatri or Lower (which has u for both o and u: up. totă "full", tută "taste" – lo. tută "full, taste" ). The literary language is based on both the Lower and Upper dialects. Both Tatar and the neighboring Uralic languages such as Mari have influenced the Chuvash language, as have Russian, Mongolian, Arabic, and Persian, which have all added many words to the Chuvash lexicon.

Morphology

As characteristic of all Turkic languages, Chuvash is an agglutinative language and as such, has an abundance of suffixes but no native prefixes (apart from the reduplicating intensifier prefix as in шурӑ - white, шап-шурӑ - very white, лайăх - good, лап-лайăх - very good, хитре - beautiful, хип-хитре - very beautiful, çĕнĕ - new, çĕп-çĕнĕ - very new). One word can have many suffixes, which can also be used to create new words like creating a verb from a noun or a noun from a verbal root. See Vocabulary below. It can also indicate the grammatical function of the word.

Nouns and adjectives

Chuvash nouns can take endings indicating the person of a possessor. They can take case-endings. There are six noun cases in the Chuvash declension system:

Grammatical case:

• Nominative -
• Possessive, formed by adding -ӑн (-ӗн) or simply -н according to the vowel harmony
• Dative-Accusative, formed by adding -(н)а (-(н)е) according to the vowel harmony
• Locative, formed by adding -ра (-ре), -та (-те) according to the vowel harmony
• Ablative, formed by adding -ран (-рен), -тан (-тен) according to the vowel harmony
• Instrumental, formed by adding -па(ла(н)) (-пе(ле(н))) according to the vowel harmony
• Abessive, formed by adding -сӑр (-сӗр) according to the vowel harmony
• Causative, formed by adding -шӑн (-шӗн) according to the vowel harmony

Plural:

• Nominative: -сем
• Possessive: -сен
• Dative-Accusative: -сене
• Locative: -сенче
• Ablative: -сенчен
• Instrumental: -семпе
• Abessive: -семсĕр
• Causative: -семшĕн

Also:

• Terminative–antessive, formed by adding -(ч)чен
• relic of distributive, formed by adding -серен: кунсерен "daily, every day", килсерен "per house", килмессерен "every time one comes"
• Semblative, formed by adding пек to pronouns in genitive or objective case (ман пек "like me", сан пек "like you", ун пек "like him, that way", пирӗн пек "like us", сирӗн пек "like you all", хам пек "like myself", хӑвӑн пек "like yourself", кун пек "like this"); adding -ла, -ле to nouns (этемле "humanlike", ленинла "like Lenin")
• Postfix: ха (ha)
• Comparison: -рах/-рех
• Infinitive: -ма(лла|лли|лăх)/-ме(лле|лли|лĕх)

Taking кун (day) as an example:

Possession is expressed by means of constructions based on verbs meaning "to exist" and "not to exist" ("пур" and "ҫук"). For example, to say, "My cat had no shoes":

кушак + -ӑн ура атӑ(и) + -сем ҫук + -ччӗ

(кушакӑн ура аттисем ҫукччӗ)

which literally translates as "cat-mine-of foot-cover(of)-plural-his non-existent-was."

Verbs

Chuvash verbs exhibit person and can be made negative or impotential; they can also be made potential. Finally, Chuvash verbs exhibit various distinctions of tense mood, and aspect: a verb can be progressive, necessitative, aorist, future, inferential, present, past, conditional, imperative or optative.

Vowel harmony

Vowel harmony is the principle by which a native Chuvash word generally incorporates either exclusively back vowels (а, ӑ, у, ы) or exclusively front vowels (е, ӗ, и, ӳ). As such, a notation for a Chuvash suffix such as -тен means either -тан or -тен, whichever promotes vowel harmony; a notation such as -тпӗр means either -тпӑр, -тпӗр, again with vowel harmony constituting the deciding factor.

Chuvash has two classes of vowels: front and back (see the table above). Vowel harmony states that words may not contain both front and back vowels. Therefore, most grammatical suffixes come in front and back forms, e.g. Шупашкарта "in Cheboksary" but килте "at home".

Exceptions

Compound words are considered separate words with respect to vowel harmony: vowels do not have to harmonize between members of the compound (so forms like сӗтел|пукан "furniture" are permissible). In addition, vowel harmony does not apply for loanwords and some invariant suffixes (such as -ӗ); there are also a few native Chuvash words that do not follow the rule (such as анне "mother"). In such words suffixes harmonize with the final vowel; thus Аннепе "with the mother".

Word order

Word order in Chuvash is generally subject–object–verb.

Chuvash numbers

• 1 – пӗрре pĕrre, пӗр pĕr
• 2 – иккӗ ikkĕ, икӗ ikĕ, ик ik
• 3 – виҫҫӗ viśśĕ, виҫӗ viśĕ, виҫ viś
• 4 – тӑваттӑ tăvattă, тӑватӑ tăvată, тӑват tăvat
• 5 – пиллӗк pillĕk, пилӗк pilĕk
• 6 – улттӑ ulttă Template:IPA-cv, ултӑ ultă Template:IPA-cv, улт ult Template:IPA-cv/Template:IPA-cv
• 7 – ҫиччӗ śiččĕ Template:IPA-cv, ҫичӗ śičĕ Template:IPA-cv, ҫич śič Template:IPA-cv
• 8 – саккӑр sakkăr Template:IPA-cv, сакӑр sakăr Template:IPA-cv
• 9 – тӑххӑр tăhhăr, тӑхӑр tăhăr
• 10 – вуннӑ vunnă, вун vun
• 11 – вун пӗр vun pĕr
• 12 – вун иккӗ vun ikkĕ, вун икӗ vun ikĕ, вун ик vun ik
• 13 – вун виҫҫӗ vun viśśĕ, вун виҫӗ vun viśĕ, вун виҫ vun viś
• 14 – вун тӑваттӑ vun tăvattă, вун тӑватӑ vun tăvată, вун тӑват vun tăvat
• 15 – вун пиллӗк vun pillĕk, вун пилӗк vun pilĕk
• 16 – вун улттӑ vun ulttă, вун ултӑ vun ultă, вун улт vun ult
• 17 – вун ҫиччӗ vun śiččĕ, вун ҫичӗ vun śičĕ
• 18 – вун саккӑр vun sakkăr, вун сакӑр vun sakăr
• 19 – вун тӑххӑр vun tăhhăr, вун тӑхӑр vun tăhăr
• 20 – ҫирӗм śirĕm
• 30 – вӑтӑр vătăr
• 40 – хӗрӗх hĕrĕh
• 50 – аллӑ allă, алӑ ală, ал al
• 60 – утмӑл utmăl
• 70 – ҫитмӗл śitmĕl
• 80 – сакӑрвуннӑ sakărvunnă, сакӑрвун sakărvun
• 90 – тӑхӑрвуннӑ tăhărvunnă, тӑхӑрвун tăhărvun
• 100 – ҫӗр śĕr
• 1000 – пин pin
• 834236 - сакӑр ҫӗр вӑтӑр тӑватӑ пин те ик ҫӗр вӑтӑр улттӑ sakăr śĕr vătăr tăvată pin te ik śĕr vătăr ulttă Template:IPA-cv, сакӑр ҫӗр вӑтӑр тӑватӑ пин те ик ҫӗр вӑтӑр ултӑ sakăr śĕr vătăr tăvată pin te ik śĕr vătăr ultă

See also

• Chuvash literature
• Bulgar language
• Cyrillic script
• Khazar language
• Oghur languages
• Turkic Avar language
• Turkic languages
• Ivan Yakovlev

References

Specific

1. Chuvash at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. also known as Chăvash, Chuwash, Chovash, Chavash, Çuvaş or Çuaş
3. http://www.cv-haval.org/ru/node/54 Эктор Алос-и-Фонт. Оценка языковой политики в Чувашии
4. http://cvlat.blogspot.com/2010/11/blog-post.html Оценка языковой политики в Чувашии
5. Ethnologue report for Chuvash
6. Russian Census 2002. 6. Владение языками (кроме русского) населением отдельных национальностей по республикам, автономной области и автономным округам Российской Федерации(Knowledge of languages other than Russian by the population of republics, autonomous oblast and autonomous districts)Template:Ru icon
7. Zheltov, Pavel. An Attribute-Sample Database System for Describing Chuvash Affixes
8. Tapani Salminen (22 September 1999). "UNESCO red book on endangered languages: Europe".
9. Index Translationum: translations from Chuvash - shows 202 titles, as of 2013-01-06. The index has data since ca. 1979.
10. Index Translationum: translations from Chuvash, published in the USSR - shows 170 titles
11. Index Translationum: translations from Chuvash, published in Russia - shows 17 titles
12. Index Translationum: translations into Chuvash
13. Johanson (1998); cf. Johanson (2000, 2007) and the articles pertaining to the subject in Johanson & Csató (ed., 1998).
14. Encyclopædia Britannica (1997)
15. "Telegram to the Chairman of the Simbirsk Soviet". Retrieved 30 August 2010.
16. András Róna-Tas. "Nutshell Chuvash" (PDF). Erasmus Mundus Intensive Program Turkic languages and cultures in Europe (TLCE). Retrieved 31 August 2010.

General

• Čaušević, Ekrem (2002). "Tschuwaschisch. in: M. Okuka (ed.)" (PDF). Lexikon der Sprachen des europäischen Ostens. Enzyklopädie des europäischen Ostens 10. Klagenfurt: Wieser: 811–815. Retrieved 31 August 2010.
• Johanson, Lars & Éva Agnes Csató, ed. (1998). The Turkic languages. London: Routledge.
• Lars Johansen (1998). "The history of Turkic". Johanson & Csató. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online CD 98. pp. 81–125. Retrieved 5 September 2007.
• Lars Johanson (1998). "Turkic languages".
• Lars Johanson (2000). "Linguistic convergence in the Volga area". Gilbers, Dicky & Nerbonne, John & Jos Schaeken (ed.). Languages in contact Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi. pp. 165–178 (Studies in Slavic and General linguistics 28.), .{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
• Johanson, Lars (2007). Chuvash. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier.
• Krueger, John (1961). Chuvash Manual. Indiana University Publications.
• Paasonen, Heikki (1949). Gebräuche und Volksdichtung der Tschuwassen. edited by E. Karabka and M. Räsänen (Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrinenne XCIV), Helsinki.
• Петров, Н. П (2001). "Чувашская письменность новая". Краткая чувашская энциклопедия. – Чебоксары. pp. С. 475–476.
• Эктор Алос-и-Фонт, «Преподавание чувашского языка и проблема языкового поведения родителей», Чувашский государственный институт гуманитарных наук, 2015, Cheboksary.

External links

• Скоро чувашский язык останется «какой-то культурной традицией»
• Chuvash–Russian On-Line Dictionary
• Chuvash English On-Line Dictionary
• Chuvash People's Website Template:En icon, also available in Chuvash, Esperanto and Russian
• Nutshell Chuvash, by András Róna-Tas
• Chuvash people and language by Éva Kincses Nagy, Istanbul Erasmus IP 1- 13. 2. 2007
• Chuvash manual online

v t e Turkic languages
Proto-language	Proto-Turkic
Common Turkic	Argu Argu Khalaj Karluk Western Northern Uzbek Southern Uzbek Eastern Ili Turki Uyghur Khoton Lop Äynu Old Chagatai Karakhanid Khorezmian Kipchak Bulgar Bashkir Tatar Mishar Tatar Nagaibak Old Tatar Cuman Armeno-Kipchak Crimean Tatar Cuman Karachay-Balkar Karaim Krymchak Kumyk Mamluk-Kipchak Urum Kyrgyz Fergana Kipchak Kyrgyz Pamir Kyrgyz Siberian Tatar Baraba Tom Southern Altai Telengit Teleut Nogai Dobrujan Tatar Karakalpak Kazakh Nogai Siberian Tatar Tobol-Irtysh Oghuz Salar Eastern Khorasani Turkic Turkmen Trukhmen Southern Afshari Chaharmahali Turkic Qashqai Sonqori Western Azerbaijani North Azerbaijani South Azerbaijani Ajem-Turkic Balkan Gagauz Gagauz Karapapakh Turkish Karamanli Turkish Old Anatolian Turkish Ottoman Turkish Siberian Northern Dolgan Yakut Southern Chulym Lower Chulym Sayan Steppe Tuvan Taiga Dukhan Soyot Tofa Yenisei Fuyu Kyrgyz Khakas Northern Altai Chelkan Kumandy Tuba Shor Western Yugur Old Old Uyghur Orkhon Turkic
Oghur	Bulgar Chuvash
Disputed classification	Khazar Pecheneg
Potentially Turkic languages	Di Hunnic Jie Pannonian Avar Tuoba Wusun Xiongnu
Creoles and pidgins	Hezhou Kurbet Qoqmončaq
Italics indicate extinct languages Languages between parentheses are varieties of the language on their left.

• Turkic languages
• Use dmy dates from March 2011
• Chuvash language
• Agglutinative languages
• Chuvash people
• Languages of Russia
• Vowel-harmony languages
• Oghur languages