Hinuq language
The Hinuq language is a Northeast Caucasian language of the Tsezic subgroup. It is spoken by about 200 to 500 people, the Hinukhs, in the Tsuntinsky District of southwestern Dagestan, mainly in the village of Genukh. 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, Avar and Russian are used as literary languages. 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 by Russian ethnographer A. Serzhputovsky.
Phonology
Vowels
Hinukh distinguishes 6 vowel qualities, all of which can be either long or short. Two vowels can occur pharyngealized: and. However, these are only used by the older generation. Today they are usually replaced by.| Front | Central | Back | |
| High | i ü | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Low | a |
Hinuq also has 6 diphthongs:,,,,, and .
Consonants
Like many Caucasian languages, Hinuq has a large number of consonants. In addition to voiced and unvoiced consonants, there are also ejectives.Syllable Structure
Native Hinuq stems can have the structure CV, CV:, or CVC. Inflected words can also have the structures CV:C and CVyC. Consonant clusters of two consonants can occur between vowels, and not all combinations of consonants are permitted. To break up illegal consonant clusters, an epenthetic // or // can be inserted between them, depending on the context.To avoid consecutive vowels between morpheme boundaries, either the first vowel can be deleted, or a glide can be inserted between them.
Morphology
Hinuq is an agglutinative language which mainly makes use of suffixes.Nouns
Hinukh is an ergative-absolutive language, and nouns inflect for case and number. Like most Northeast Caucasian languages, shows a rich case system. There are six non-spatial cases as well as 35 spatial cases. The spatial case system itself consists of two categories, location and orientation, expressed by the use of direction markers.Stem Formation
Hinuq distinguishes a direct and oblique stem. Case suffixes are primarily added to the oblique stem. To form the oblique stem, there are different options, including oblique suffixes; epenthetic vowels; deletion of the base-stem-final consonant, vowel, or semivowel; stress shift; or ablaut. The oblique stem suffixes are -mo, -a, -la, -i, -ya, -o, -li, -yi, -ra, -ro, -ru, -do, -u, -na, -nu. -mo is the most productive of these suffixes. Some examples of nominal declension are given below.Number
Hinuq nouns distinguish between singular and plural. The absolutive plural suffix is almost invariably formed with -be. The oblique plural stem is formed with the suffix -za. The oblique plural suffix is attached to the base stem, and case suffixes are then attached to the oblique plural.| 'bull' | 'cat' | |
| Absolutive | gani-be | k'et'-be |
| Ergative | gani-ža-y | k'et'-za-y |
| Genitive 1 | gani-ža-s | k'et'-za-s |
| Genitive 2 | gani-ža-zo | k'et'-za-zo |
| -Essive | gani-ža-ɬ | k'et'-za-ɬ |
| -Essive | gani-ža-qo | k'et'-za-qo |
Case
The six non-spatial case suffixes are:| Case | Suffix |
| Absolutive | no suffix |
| Ergative | -i |
| Genitive 1 | -s |
| Genitive 2 | -zo |
| Dative | -z |
| Instrumental | -d |
Absolutive
The absolutive noun phrase can act as the single argument of an intransitive verb:the patient/theme of a transitive verb:
and the stimulus of an experiencer verb:
Ergative
The ergative suffix is -i after consonants and -y after vowels, and marks the agentive argument of transitive verbs.Genitive
Hinuq has two genitive suffixes: First Genitive, and Second Genitive. The First Genitive has the suffix -s, and is used when the head noun is in the absolutive case. If the head noun is in an oblique case, it takes the Second Genitive suffix -zo.The genitive cases are primarily used to show both alienable and inalienable possession.
The genitive cases can also be used to denote part-whole relationships, a quality or property, and the material of an object.
Dative
The dative case marks recipients, experiencers, and beneficiaries, and has the suffix -z. Experiencer verbs include -eti- 'want', -aši- 'find, get', -eq'i- 'know', -ike- 'see', and others.The dative case is also used in benefactive and malefactive constructions.
Instrumental
The instrumental case suffix is -d, and expresses the use of instruments, body parts, and animal used for work.Spatial Cases
Hinuq has 35 spatial cases that run along two dimensions: 7 location markers, On, At, Animate Location, and Inanimate Location) and 5 orientation markers.| Essive | Lative | Ablative 1 | Ablative 2 | Directional | |
| -ɫ | -ɫ-e-r | -ɫ-e-s | -ɫ-e-zo | -ɫ-e-do | |
| -V / -ma | -V-r / -ma-r | -V-s / -ma-s | -V-zo / -ma-zo | -V-do / -ma-do | |
| -ƛ | -ƛ-e-r | -ƛ-e-s | -ƛ-e-zo | -ƛ-e-do | |
| -ƛ'o | -ƛ'o-r | -ƛ'o-s | -ƛ'o-zo | -ƛ'o-do | |
| -qo | -qo-r | -qo-s | -qo-zo | -qo-do | |
| -de | -de-r | -de-s | -de-zo | -de-do | |
| -ho | -go-r | -ho-s | -ho-zo | -ho-do |
When combined with the location marker, the orientation marker denotes the kind of motion conveyed, e.g., the Lative indicates motion towards a goal:
Spatial cases can also have metaphorical meanings, like temporal phrases.
Nominal Derivation
Hinuq has several suffixes for nominal derivation:| Suffix | Meaning | Example |
| -ɫi | Abstract nouns | maduhal 'neighbor', maduhal-ɫi 'neighborhood' |
| -be | Names of groups of people | qazaq 'Georgia', qazaq-be 'Georgians' |
| -nak'u | Agentive nouns, activities, and tools | -ox-a 'leave, escape', -oxa-nak'u 'escapee' |
| -qan | Professions | nuce 'honey', nuco-qan 'beekeeper' |
| -qu | Professions and tools | kak 'prayer', kak-mo-qu 'prayer mat' |
Verbs
Verbs in Hinuq can consist of just a stem, or combined with prefixes and suffixes. Verbs can be inflected for tense, aspect, mood, evidentiality, polarity, illocutionary force, gender, and number.There are five grammatical genders in Hinuq which are expressed through verbal prefixes, and only on vowel-initial stems. Gender is distinguished by the combination of prefixes for singular and plural agreement:
| I | II | III | IV | V | |
| Singular | Ø- | y- | b- | y- | r- |
| Plural | b- | b-/r- | r- | r- | r- |
Example:
Forker identifies four different conjugation classes based on the verbal stem endings.
- Class 1 verbs have consonant-final stems.
| Verb | Translation | |
| nox- | noxxo | 'come' |
| -uƛ'- | -uƛƛo | 'fear' |
- Class 2 consists of verbs with stem-final //
- Class 3 consists of verbs with stem-final //
- Class 4 consists of verb stems that end in a long vowel
Hinuq verbs are morphologically complex, but follow a "template" with slots for different types of affixes. All slots besides the root, however, are optional. The template is:
+ Root + + + + +Example verb with derivational, inflectional, and negation suffixes:
Tenses are marked synthetically on the verbs by means of affixes, or periphrastically with auxiliary verbs. Hinuq has 5 simple tenses and 14 complex tenses.
As its sister languages Bezhta and Tsez, Hinukh differentiates between "witnessed past" and "unwitnessed past" ; the present tense is marked with the suffix -ho. In the future tense, Hinukh distinguishes a "direct future", which is used only in the first person and an "indirect future" used for all other persons.