Chuvash (Chuvash: Чӑвашла, Čăvašla, IPA: [ʨəʋaʂˈla]; also known as Chăvash, Chuwash, Chovash, Chavash, Çuvaş or Çuaş) is a Turkic language spoken to the west of the Ural Mountains in central Russia. It is the only surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic languages. , Chuvash Republic (Russian: ; ), or Chuvashia () is a federal subject of Russia (a republic) located in central Russia. ... Russian Census of 2002 (Russian: ) was the first census of Russian Federation carried out on October 9, 2002. ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... Altaic is a proposed language family that includes 66 languages [1] spoken by about 348 million people, mostly in and around Central Asia and northeast Asia. ... Altaic is a putative language family which would include 60 languages spoken by about 250 million people, mostly in and around central Asia. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. ... The Oghur languages (also known as Oghur, Oghuric, or Oghur-Turkic), are a separate branch of the Turkic language family. ... , Chuvash Republic (Russian: ; ), or Chuvashia () is a federal subject of Russia (a republic) located in central Russia. ... Russia is a federation which consists of 89 subjects (Russian: субъект(ы); English transliteration: subyekty, sing. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... The Turkic languages are a group of closely related languages that are spoken by a variety of people distributed across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China. ... Map of the Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains (Russian: , Uralskiye gory) (also known as the Urals, the Riphean Mountains in Greco-Roman antiquity, and known as the Stone Belt) are a mountain range that runs roughly north and south through western Russia. ... The Oghur languages (also known as Oghur, Oghuric, or Oghur-Turkic), are a separete branch of the Turkic language family. ...

Chuvash is the native language of the Chuvash people and an official language of Chuvashia. It is spoken by about two million people.^[2] 86% of ethnic Chuvash and 8% of the people of other ethnicities living in Chuvashia claimed knowledge of Chuvash language during the 2002 census.^[3] The Chuvash (Chuvash ; Russian: Чуваши; Tatar: Çuaşlar, Чуашлар) are a Turkic people usually associated with Chuvashia. ... , Chuvash Republic (Russian: ; ), or Chuvashia () is a federal subject of Russia (a republic) located in central Russia. ... Russian Census of 2002 (Russian: ) was the first census of Russian Federation carried out on October 9, 2002. ...

The writing system for the Chuvash language is based largely on the Cyrillic alphabet, employing all of the letters used in the Russian alphabet, and adding four letters of its own: Ӑ, Ӗ, Ҫ and Ӳ. The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first letters) is an alphabet used to write six natural Slavic languages (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... A with breve (majuscule:, miniscule:) is a Cyrillic letter used in the Chuvash language orthography. ... is a Cyrillic letter used only in Chuvash language. ... is a Cyrillic alphabet used for the Bashkir language. ... is used for the Chuvash langauge languages. ...

History

Chuvash is the most distinctive of the Turkic languages and thus cannot be understood by speakers of other Turkic tongues. Its parent language — spoken by the Volga Bulghars in the Middle Ages — differs from all other modern Turkic languages so considerably that it is usually classified as a sister language of Proto-Turkic, rather than a daughter language, like the rest of the Turkic languages. Other related languages, such as Hunnic, are now extinct. Bulgaria, known today as Volga Bulgaria, is a historic state that existed between the 7th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama Rivers in what is now the Russian Federation. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China. ... The Hunnic language is an extinct language of the Huns. ...

Formerly, scholars considered Chuvash not properly a Turkic language at all but, rather, a Turkicized Finno-Ugric (Uralic) language.^[4]

Writing systems

Current

А Ӑ Б В Г Д Е Ё Ӗ Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Ҫ Т У Ӳ Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я

а ӑ б в г д е ё ӗ ж з и й к л м н о п р с ҫ т у ӳ ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

а, ӑ, бӑ, вӑ, гӑ, дӑ, е, ё, ӗ, жӑ, зӑ, и, йӑ, кӑ, лӑ, мӑ, нӑ, о, пӑ, рӑ, сӑ, ҫӑ, тӑ, У, ӳ, фӑ, хӑ, цӑ, чӑ, шӑ, щӑ, хытӑлӑхпалли, ы, ҫемҫелӗхпалли, э, ю, я

In 1873-1938

The modern Chuvash alphabet was devised in 1873 by school inspector Ivan Yakovlevich Yakovlev ^[5].

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

Previous systems

The most ancient writing system, known as the Orkhon script, disappeared after the Volga Bulgars converted to Islam. Later, the Arabic alphabet was adopted. After the Mongol invasion, writing simply disappeared. Orkhon tablet Inscription in Kyzyl using Orkhon script Orkhon script The Orkhon script (also spelled Orhon script, also Orkhon-Yenisey script, Old Turkic script, Göktürk script, Turkish: Orhon Yazıtları) is the alphabet used by the Göktürk from the 8th century to record the Old Turkic... The Little Minaret in Bolghar For other uses, see Bulgaria (disambiguation). ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... The Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria lasted from 1223 to 1236. ...

Phonology

Dialects

There are two dialects of Chuvash: Viryal or Upper (which pronounces an o, as in хола = town) and Anatri or Lower (which pronounces the same sound as u, as in хула = town). The literary language is based on the Lower dialect. Both Tatar and the Finnic languages have influenced the Chuvash language, as have Russian, Mari, Mongolian, Arabic, and Persian, which have all added many words to the Chuvash lexicon. The Tatar language (Tatar tele, Tatarça, Татар теле, Татарча) is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars. ... Geographical distribution of Finno-Ugric (Finno-Permic in blue, Ugric in green). ... The Mari language (Mari: марий йылме, Russian марийский язык), spoken by more than 600,000 people, belongs to the Finno-Ugric language group and is part of the Volgaic subgroup of the Finnic languages together with Mordvin (though this relationship is contested; see Klima 2004 for discussion). ... Arabic redirects here. ... Farsi redirects here. ...

Grammar

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 шура="white", шап-шура="very white"). One word can have many suffixes and these can also be used to create new words (like creating a verb from a noun, or a noun from a verbal root, see Vocabulary section further below) or to indicate the grammatical function of the word. It has been suggested that Agglutination be merged into this article or section. ... Look up Suffix in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Nouns and adjectives

Chuvash nouns can take endings indicating the person of a possessor. They can take case-endings, as in Latin. There are six noun cases in the Chuvash declension system: For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns and adjectives to indicate such features as number (typically singular vs. ...

• Nominative
• Genitive, formed by adding -ăн, -ĕн or simply -н according to the vowel harmony
• Objective, formed by adding -(н)a or -(н)е, according to the vowel harmony
• Locative, formed by adding -тe, -ре, -тa, -ра according to the vowel harmony
• Ablative, formed by adding -тен or -тан, -рен, ран according to the vowel harmony
• Instrumental, formed by adding -пe or -пa, according to the vowel harmony

Taking кун (day) as an example: The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The accusative case of a noun is, generally, the case used to mark the direct object of a verb. ... Locative is a case which indicates a location. ... In linguistics, ablative case (also called the sixth case) (abbreviated ABL) is a name given to cases in various languages whose common thread is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ. ... In linguistics, the instrumental case (also called the eighth case) indicates that a noun is the instrument or means by which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. ...

Possession is expressed by means of constructions based on verbs meaning "to exist" and "to not exist". Thus, while "пур" and "çук" represent "exists" and "not exists," "пурччĕ" and "çукччĕ" are the preterite of these. These lead to the most bizarre-looking (to a Western reader) sentential structures: e.g., in order to say, "My cat had no shoes," we form:

кушак + -ăм + -ăн ура атă(и) + -сем çук + -ччĕ

(кушакăмăн ура аттисем çукччĕ)

which literally translates as, "cat-mine-of foot-cover(of)-plural-his non-existent-was." Note that many of the agglutinative languages of Eurasia use a form of the copula (the 'to be' verb) in order to mark possession, instead of a distinct verb meaning 'to have.' An example is Hungarian.

Verbs

Chuvash verbs exhibit person. They 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

For more details on this topic, see Vowel harmony.

"Vowel harmony" is the principle by which a native Chuvash word generally incorporates either exclusively back vowels (а, ă, у, ы) or exclusively front vowels (е, ĕ, 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 -тпĕр means either -тпăр, -тпĕр again with vowel harmony constituting the deciding factor. Vowel harmony (also metaphony) is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels. ...

Chuvash has two classes of vowels -- front and back. 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. Шупашкар'та "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 (thus forms like сĕтел|пукан "furniture" are permissible). In addition, vowel harmony does not apply for loanwords and some invariant suffixes (such as -ĕ); 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 Анне'пе "With the mother". A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ...

Voiced consonants

Unvoiced consonants in Chuvash become voiced in an intervocal position. E.g. Аннепе sounds like annebe, кушакпа sounds like kuzhakpa.

Word order

Word order in Chuvash is generally Subject Object Verb, as in Japanese, Turkish and much of classical Latin, but not modern English. In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV) is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence appear (usually) in that order. ... For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Notes

...

References

• John Krueger (1961). Chuvash Manual. Indiana University Publications. 
• Heikki Paasonen (1949). Gebräuche und Volksdichtung der Tschuwassen. edited by E. Karabka and M. Räsänen (Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrinenne XCIV), Helsinki. 

See also

• Cyrillic alphabet
• Hunnic language
• Turkic language

The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by certain Slavic languages — Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—as well as many other languages of the former Soviet Union... The Hunnic language is an extinct language of the Huns. ... The Turkic languages are a group of closely related languages that are spoken by a variety of people distributed across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China. ...

External links

Chuvash language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Swadesh list of Chuvash words
• Interactive Chuvash-Turkish Web Dictionary
• Chuvash-Russian Web-Dictionary
• Chuvash People's Site, in Chuvash, English, Esperanto and Russian