Ingush language

Ingush and Chechen, together with Bats, constitute the Nakh branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. There is pervasive passive bilingualism between Ingush and Chechen.{{sfnp|Nichols|Sprouse|2004|p=1}}

Ingush is not divided into dialects with the exception of {{ill|Galanchoz|ru|Галанчожский диалект}} (native name: Галай-Чӏож/Галайн-Чӏаж), which is considered to be transitional between Chechen and Ingush.{{sfn|Koryakov|2006|p=25}}

Ingush is spoken by about 350,000-400,000 people (2020) in Russia, primarily in the North Caucasian republics of Ingushetia, North Ossetia and Chechnya. Speakers can also be found in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Belgium, Norway, Turkey and Jordan.

Ingush is, alongside Russian, an official language of Ingushetia, a federal subject of Russia.

The diphthongs are иэ /ie/, уо /uo/, оа {{IPA|/oɑ/}}, ий /ij/, эи /ei/, ои /oi/, уи /ui/, ов /ow/, ув /uw/.

The consonants of Ingush are as follows,{{sfnp|Nichols|2011|p=20}} including the Latin orthography developed by Johanna Nichols:{{sfnp|Nichols|2011|pp=19-21}}

Single consonants can be geminated by various morphophonemic processes.

{{Expand language|langcode=ru|section=yes|name=Ингушская письменность|date=May 2025}}

It is possible that during the period of 8–12th century, when the Temples like Tkhaba-Yerdy emerged in Ingushetia, a writing system based on a Georgian script emerged. This is attested by the fact that a non-Georgian name, 'Enola', was found written on the arc of Tkhaba-Yerdy.{{sfn|Chentieva|1958|p=13}} Furthermore, Georgian text was found on archaeological items in Ingushetia that could not be deciphered.{{sfn|Chentieva|1958|p=14}}

Ingush became a written language with an Arabic-based writing system at the beginning of the 20th century.

After the October Revolution it first used a Latin alphabet, which was later replaced by Cyrillic.

Ingush is a nominative–accusative language in its syntax, though it has ergative morphology.{{sfnp|Nichols|2008}}{{sfnp|Nichols|2011}}

The most recent and in-depth analysis of the language{{sfnp|Nichols|2011}} shows eight cases: absolutive, ergative, genitive, dative, allative, instrumental, lative and comparative.

{{notelist}}

Like many Northeast Caucasian languages, Ingush uses a vigesimal system, where numbers lower than twenty are counted as in a base-ten system, but higher decads are base-twenty.

1. Note that "four" and its derivatives begin with noun-class marker. d- is merely the default value.

In Ingush, "for main clauses, other than episode-initial and other all-new ones, verb-second order is most common. The verb, or the finite part of a compound verb or analytic tense form (i.e. the light verb or the auxiliary), follows the first word or phrase in the clause".{{sfnp|Nichols|2011|pp=678ff}}

{{interlinear |indent=2

|Muusaa vy hwuona telefon jettazh

|Musa {{gcl|V|gender agreement marker; gender class (marker is /v/) }}.PROG 2S.DAT telephone strike.{{gcl|CVsim|simultaeous converb}}

|It's Musa on the phone for you. (After answering the phone.)

}}

{{reflist|20em}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book

|first = Zev |last = Handel

|date = 2003

|chapter = Ingush inflectional verb morphology: a synchronic classification and historical analysis with comparison to Chechen

|title = Current Trends in Caucasian, East European and Inner Asian Linguistics

|pages = 123–175

|doi = 10.1075/cilt.246.11han

|chapter-url = http://faculty.washington.edu/zhandel/Handel_Ingush.pdf

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170201161051/https://faculty.washington.edu/zhandel/Handel_Ingush.pdf

|archive-date = Feb 1, 2017

}}

• {{cite encyclopedia

|title = Ingush-English and English-Ingush Dictionary

|date = 2004

|first1 = Johanna |last1 = Nichols |author-link = Johanna Nichols

|first2 = Ronald L. |last2 = Sprouse

|publisher= Routledge

}}

• {{Cite book

|last = Nichols |first = Johanna |author-link = Johanna Nichols

|date = 2008

|chapter = Case in Ingush syntax

|title = Case and Grammatical Relations

|series = Typological Studies in Language |volume = 81 |location =

|publisher = John Benjamins Publishing Company

|pages = 57–74

|doi = 10.1075/tsl.81.04nic

|isbn = 978-90-272-2994-6 |chapter-url = {{google books URL|IBtKVxlOSigC|p=57}}

}}

• {{Cite book

|last = Nichols |first = Johanna |author-link = Johanna Nichols

|date = 2011-03-15

|title = Ingush Grammar

|location = Berkeley, California; Los Angeles; London

|publisher = University of California Press

|pages = 1–806

|url = https://escholarship.org/content/qt3nn7z6w5/qt3nn7z6w5.pdf

}}

{{refend}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{Cite book

|last=Chentieva |first=Maryam

|year=1958

|editor-last=Oshaev |editor-first=Khalid

|title=История Чечено-Ингушской письменности

|trans-title=The History of Checheno-Ingush writing

|url=https://dzurdzuki.com/download/chentieva-m-d-istoriya-checheno-ngushskoj/

|language=ru

|location=Grozny

|publisher=Checheno-Ingush Book Publishing House

|pages=1–86

}}

• {{Cite book

|last=Dudarov |first=Abdul-Mazhit

|year=2017

|editor-last=Akieva |editor-first=Petimat

|title=История эволюции ингушского письма

|trans-title=History of the evolution of Ingush writing

|url=https://ingnii.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/evoluciya_ing_pisma.pdf

|language=ru

|location=Nazran

|publisher=Kep

|pages=1–224

|isbn=978-5-4482-0015-1

}}

• {{Cite book

|last=Koryakov |first=Yuriy

|year=2006

|chapter=Реестр Кавказских языков

|trans-chapter=Register of Caucasian languages

|chapter-url=http://lingvarium.org/raznoe/publications/caucas/alw-cau-reestr.pdf

|title=Атлас кавказских языков

|trans-title=Atlas of Caucasian languages

|url=https://studizba.com/pdf_reader/web/viewer.html?file=/uploads/unziped/real/236617/pdf/63058-53938.pdf

|language=ru

|location=Moscow

|publisher=Piligrim

|pages=21–41

|isbn=5-9900772-1-1

}}

{{refend}}

{{interWiki|code= inh}}

{{Portal|Russia|Languages}}

• Appendix:Cyrillic script
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20150610213543/http://mott.vvvay.net/lang/book/ Indigenous Language of the Caucasus (Ingush)]
• [http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~ingush/ Ingush Language Project at UC Berkeley]
• [http://languageserver.uni-graz.at/ls/desc?id=36&type=r University of Graz report] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930093732/http://languageserver.uni-graz.at/ls/desc?id=36&type=r |date=2007-09-30 }}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160304194825/mott.vvvay.net/lang/r-i.htm Russian-Ghalghaj (Ingush) vocabulary]
• [http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?root=new100&morpho=0&basename=new100\ncc\nah&limit=-1&encoding=utf-eng Ingush 100-word Swadesh list at the Global Lexicostatistical Database]

{{Languages of Russia}}

{{Northeast Caucasian languages}}

{{Languages of the Caucasus}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ingush Language}}

Category:Northeast Caucasian languages

Category:Languages of Russia

Category:Languages of Kazakhstan

Category:Verb-second languages