Chuvash language
Chuvash is a Turkic language spoken in Volga-Ural region of Russia, primarily in the Chuvash Republic and adjacent areas. It is the only surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic languages, one of the two principal branches of the Turkic family.
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.
Distribution
Chuvash is the native language of the Chuvash people and an official language of Chuvashia. There are contradictory numbers regarding the number of people able to speak Chuvash nowadays; some sources claim it is spoken by 1,640,000 persons in Russia and another 34,000 in other countries and that 86% of ethnic Chuvash and 8% of the people of other ethnicities living in Chuvashia claimed knowledge of Chuvash language during the 2002 census. However, other sources claim that the number of Chuvash speakers is on the decline, with a drop from 1 million speakers in 2010 to 700,000 in 2021; observers suggest this is due to Moscow having a lack of interest in preserving the language diversity in Russia. Although Chuvash is taught at schools and sometimes used in the media, it is considered endangered by the UNESCO, 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 since ca. 1979. However, as with most 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. A similar situation takes place with the translation of books from other languages into Chuvash.
Classification
Chuvash is the most distinctive of the Turkic languages and cannot be understood by other Turkic speakers, whose languages have varying degrees of mutual intelligibility within their respective subgroups. Chuvash is classified, alongside the long-extinct Bulgar, as a member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family, or equivalently, the sole surviving descendant of West Old Turkic. 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.Despite grammatical similarity with the rest of Turkic language family, the presence of changes in Chuvash pronunciation has led some scholars to see Chuvash as originating not from Proto-Turkic but from another proto-language spoken at the time of Proto-Turkic.
Italian historian and philologist Igor de Rachewiltz noted a significant distinction of the Chuvash language from other Turkic languages. According to him, the Chuvash language does not share certain common characteristics with Turkic languages to such a degree that some scholars consider Chuvash as an independent branch from Turkic and Mongolic. The Turkic classification of Chuvash was seen as a compromise solution for classification purposes.
The Oghuric branch is distinguished from the rest of the Turkic family by two sound changes: r corresponding to Common Turkic z and l corresponding to Common Turkic š. The first scientific fieldwork description of Chuvash, by August Ahlqvist in 1856, allowed researchers to establish its proper affiliation.
Some scholars suggest Hunnish had strong ties with Chuvash and classify Chuvash as separate Hunno-Bulgar. However, such speculations are not based on proper linguistic evidence, since the language of the Huns is almost unknown except for a few attested words and personal names. Scholars generally consider Hunnish as unclassifiable. Chuvash is so divergent from the main body of Turkic languages that some scholars formerly considered Chuvash to be a Uralic language. Conversely, other scholars today regard it as an Oghuric language significantly influenced by the Finno-Ugric languages.
The following sound changes and resulting sound correspondences are typical:
| Sound change from Proto-Turkic | Example of sound correspondence |
| */ɾʲ/ > r | хӗр : Turkish kız 'girl' |
| */lʲ/ > l, but occasionally /lʲ/ > ś | хӗл : Turkish kış ‘winter’ пуҫ : Turkish baş ‘head’ |
| *y > ǰ > č > ś | ҫул : Turkish yol ‘road’ |
| *-n > -m | тӗтӗм : Turkish tütün ‘smoke’ |
| *-ŋ > -n | ҫӗнӗ : Yakut саҥа, Turkish yeni 'new' |
| *-d > -ð > -z > -r | ура : Tuvan адак, Turkish ayak ‘foot’ |
| * > χ But dropped before later *y | хура : Turkish kara 'black' юн : Turkish kan 'blood' |
| *-/k/ finally in disyllabic stems: > g > γ > ∅ | пулӑ : Turkish balık 'fish', ĕне : Turkish inek 'cow' |
| *-g > *-w > -v, -∅ | ту : Turkish dağ 'mountain', тив : Turkish değ 'touch', вӗрен : Turkish öğren 'learn', аллӑ : Turkish elli |
| *s > š occasionally | шыв : Old Turkic sub, Turkish su 'water' |
| *b- > p- | пӗр : Turkish bir 'one' |
| *-b'' > *-w > -v | шыв : Old Turkic sub, Turkish su 'water' |
| *t in palatal environments > č | чӗр : Turkish diz 'knee' |
| diphthongisation of long vowels producing /yV/ and /vV/ sequences ; e.g.: | ят : Turkmen at, Turkish ad 'name' вут : Turkmen ot, Turkish od 'fire' тӑват : Turkish dört |
| reduction and centralisation of high vowels: | тӑр : Turkish dur 'stand' хӗр : Turkish kız 'girl' пӗр : Turkish bir 'one', кӗл : Turkish kül 'ash' |
| *a > *å > o > u ; but also : | ут : Turkish at 'horse' ҫыр : Turkish yaz 'write' |
| raising of most other low vowels: *ẹ > i, *o > u, *ö > ü | кил : Turkish gel 'come', утӑ : Turkish ot 'grass' |
| *e > a | кас : Turkish kes 'cut' |
| Allophonic rules: voicing between voiced segments, palatalisation of consonants in palatal environments, leftward stress retraction from reduced vowels | See Phonology section. |
Most of the consonant changes listed in the table above are thought to date from the period before the Bulgars migrated to the Volga region in the 10th century; some notable exceptions are the č > ś shift and the final stage of the -d > -ð > -z > -r shift, which date from the following, Volga Bulgar period. The vowel changes mostly occurred later, mainly during the Middle Chuvash period, except for the diphthongisation, which took place during the Volga Bulgar period. Many sound changes known from Chuvash can be observed in Turkic loanwords into Hungarian and in Volga Bulgar epitaphs or loanwords into languages of the Volga region. Nevertheless, these sources also indicate that there was significant dialectal variation within the Oguric-speaking population during both of these periods.
Comparison
In the 8-10th centuries in Central Asia, the ancient Turkic script was used for writing in Turkic languages. Turkic epitaphs of 7-9th centuries AD were left by speakers of various dialects :- Often in the Chuvash language, the Common Turkic sounds of /j/, /d/, /z/ are replaced by /r/, example rhotacism:
j - languages : ayaq, qoy-
d - languages : adaq, qod-
z - languages : azaq, qoz-
r - languages : ura, hur-
- Often in the Chuvash language, the Turkic sound /q/ is replaced by /x/, example hitaism:
Сhitacism
| English word | Oghuz / Kipchak | Chuvash | Chuvash |
| black | qara | hura | hora |
| goose | qaz | hur | hor |
| girl | qız | hĕr | hĕr |
| zucchini | qabaq | hupah | hopah |
- The -h- sound disappears if it is the final sound of a syllable.
Ayaq - Ura - Leg instead of Urah
Balıq - Pulă - Fish instead of Pulăh
İnek - Ĕne - Cow instead of Ĕneh
- Turkic sound -y- and -j- is replaced by chuvash -ş-, example:
Oguz: yumurta, yılan, yağmur, yurt, yer
Kipchaks: jumırtqa, jılan, jañğır, jurt, jer
Chuvash: şămarta, şĕlen, şămăr, şurt, şĕr
- The Turkic sound -ş- is replaced by the Chuvash -L-, example lambdaism:
| English word | Oghuz / Kipchak | Chuvash |
| winter | qıš | hĕl |
| silver | kümüş | kӗmӗl |
| sun | quyaş/güŋeş | hĕvel |
- In the field of vowels, we observe the following correspondences: the common Turkic -a- in the first syllable of the word in Chuvash correspond to -u- and -o-.
| English word | Oguz / Kipchak | Chuvash | Chuvash |
| horse | at | ut | ot |
| coin | aqça | ukşa | okşa |
| head | baš | puş | poş |
| step | adım | utăm | otăm |
In modern times, in Chuvash remains, Tatar "kapka" ~ Chuvash "hapha", when there should be a "hupha" from the root "hup - close".
- In the field of vowels, G. F. Miller observes another example when -u- is replaced by -wu- or -wă-
| English word | Oguz | Chuvash | Kipchak | Chuvash |
| fire | ut | wut | ot | wot |
| ten | un | wun | on | won |
| forest | urman | wărman | orman | wărman |
| Russian | urus | wırăs | orus | wırăs |
| he | ul | wăl | ol | wăl |
| thirty | utyz | wătăr | otyz | wătăr |
- The fricative -g- in some words in Chuvash corresponds to -v-
| English word | Oghuz | Chuvash |
| native | doğan | tăvan |
| tree | ağaç | jıvăş |
| mountain | dağ | tuv |
Ogur and Oguz
It is well known that the Oghuz group of Turkic languages differs from the Kipchak in that the word “I” was pronounced by the Oghuzes and Oghurs in ancient times by "bä", and the rest of the Turks - by "män". There is such a difference in the modern Turkic languages of the Volga region:
| Volga Tatar | Chuvash | Oghuz | Translation | Notes |
| min | эпӗ | ben | I, me | |
| meñ | пин | biŋ | thousand | |
| miləş | пилеш | rowan | ||
| məçe | пӗҫи, пиҫук | pişik | cat | |
| miçəw | пичев | buckle |
tat., bash. Min, ogur/chuv. Epĕn, turk. Ben, eng. «I am»;
tat., bash. Mең, ogur/chuv. Piń, turk. Bin, eng. «thousand»;
tat., bash. Milәş, ogur/chuv. Pileš, eng. «rowan»;
tat. Мәçe, ogur/chuv. Pĕşi, Pĕşuk, az. Pişik, eng. «cat»;
,