- Hinukh language
language
name=Hinukh
nativename=гьинузас мец / hinuzas mec
pronunciation= [hiˈnuzas mɛʦ]
familycolor=Caucasian
states=Russia
region=SouthernDagestan
speakers=200–500
fam1=Northeast Caucasian
fam2=Tsezic
fam3=West Tsezic
iso1=cau|iso2=cau|iso3=ginThe Hinukh language (Hinukh: гьинузас мец "hinuzas mec", also known as Ginukh or Hinux) is a Northeast Caucasian language of the Tsezic subgroup. It is spoken by about 200 to 500 people, the Hinukhs, in the Tsunta district of southwestern
Dagestan , mainly in the village ofGenukh (Hinukh: "Hino"). Hinukh is very closely related to Tsez, but they are not entirely mutually intelligible.Only half of the children of the village speak the Hinukh language. As Hinukh is unwritten, like the other members of the Tsezic family, Avar and Russian are used as literary language. Hinukh is not considered to have dialects, but due to its linguistic proximity to Tsez it was once considered a Tsez dialect.
The Hinukh people were already mentioned in the Georgian chronicles of the
Early Middle Ages . The language itself was first described in 1916 byRussia n ethnographer A. Serzhputovsky.Phonology
Vowels
Hinukh distinguishes 6 vowel qualities ("a", "e", "o", "i", "u" and a rounded vowel "ü"), all of which can be either long or short. Two vowels can occur pharyngealized: "ˤa" and "ˤe" — however, they're only used by the older generation. Today it is usually replaced by "i".
Consonants
Morphology
It is an agglutinative language which makes mainly use of suffixes.
Nouns
Hinukh is an
ergative-absolutive language and, like most Northeast Caucasian languages, shows a rich case system. The plural suffix is almost unvariably "-be".Verbs
Tenses are marked synthetically on the verbs by means of affixes. As its sister languages Bezhta and Tsez, Hinukh differentiates between "witnessed past" (ending in "-s" or "-š") and "unwitnessed past" (in "-no"), the present tense is marked with the suffix "-ho". In the future tense, Hinukh distinguishes a "direct future" ("-n"), which is used only in the first person, and a "indirect future" ("-s") used for all other persons.
Numerals
The numeral system is
vigesimal , which means that it is a base-20 system, a feature commonly found among the languages of the Caucasus.External links
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gin Ethnologue report for Hinukh]
* [http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/hinukhs.shtml The Peoples of the Red Book: THE HINUKHS]
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