Ibero-Caucasian languages

Iberian-Caucasian languages includes 38 languages spoken by more than 7 million people (indigenous, non-Indo-European peoples of the Caucasus). It comprises several unrelated families of languages, spoken in the Caucasus. In the Caucasus exist well-known scientific school of Iberian-Caucasian linguistics. Outstanding Georgian scientist, Academician Arnold Chikobava was founder of this school.

Kartvelian (Georgian) languages (South Caucasus)

e.g. Georgian, Svan, Laz, Mingrelian (Megrelian)

Svans, Lazs and Mingrelians (Megrels) are ethnic Georgians, ethnographic groups of the Georgian people. Svan, Laz and Mingrelian are archaic dialects of the old Georgian language.

North Caucasian

• • Northwest Caucasian languages or Abkhaz-Adygh languages

e.g. Abkhaz, Abaza, Adyghe, Kabardian, Cherkess, Ubykh, and Hattic

• • Alarodian
    • North-east or Dagestan languages

e.g.

      Lezgian, Andi, Botlikh, Chamalal, Gigatl, 
      Ghodoberi, Karata, Bagvalal, Tindi, Avar, 
      Dido (Tsez), Hinukh (Ginukh), Hunzib, Bezhta, 
      Khvarshi, Darwa, Kajtak, Kubachi, Lak, Aghul, 
      Archi, Budukh, Khinalugh, Kryts, Akhvakh, 
      Rutul, Tabassaran, Tsakhur and Udi

• • • North-central or Vaynakh languages

e.g. Chechen, Ingush, Batsb

The last two groups sometimes are called Nakh-Dagestan. They have a number of common features in phonetics and grammar, for example, ergative case and sentence structure, but their genetic relationship is not clear.

Other languages in the Caucasus

In addition to Iberian-Caucasian languages, there are linguistic 'islands' of:

• Indo-European
  • Iranian - Ossetian language, Talysh language, Judeo-Tat
  • Armenian
• Altaic languages
  • Turkic - Azeri, Karachay, Balkar, Nogai and Kumyk
  • Mongolian - Kalmyk at the mouth of the Volga.

Additional information about Iberian-Caucasian languages

South Caucasian (Kartvelian (Georgian)) and North Caucasian are two distinct, unrelated phyla even in Greenberg's classification. Generally, the former are spoken south of the Caucasus and the latter north of the Caucasus watershed. According to some linguists North Caucasian split in two about five thousand years ago giving rise to the northwest or Pontic group comprising: Circassian (= Adyghe + Kabard-Cherkess), Ubykh and Abkhaz; and the northeast or Caspian group which early split into western, central and southern branches. The western branch divided early into Nakh and Avar-Andi-Dido. The chief extant languages of these two are Chechen and Avar respectively. The central branch gave rise to Lak and Dargwa, the southern branch to Lezgi and Khinalugh.

Udi is an aberrant form of Lezgi and Dido an aberrant form of Avar.

The Caucasus has the largest concentration of ergative languages in Europe. Ergativity is relevant to all the languages of the Caucasus except for Mingrelian (Kartvelian (Georgian) language group), in which the ergative case has been levelled across all subjects of verbs. All of these language families are characterised by an ergative system; also, they tend to be verb-focused, with much information about nouns encoded in the verb.

Languages of the Iberian-Caucasian language family have been linked with various other language families, some with more success than others.

• Basque has been linked with the Kartvelian (Georgian) languages, due to the fact that Basque is the only ergative language remaining in western Europe. However, the application of the ergative case differs between the families, and this hypothesis is not widely accepted.
• * The Northwest and Northeast Caucasian families have been linked with each other to form a hypothetical Common North Caucasian language family. This theory is not yet widely accepted; many of the parallels which have been drawn depend on cognates which may, in fact, be loan words.
• Some analyses of Proto-Kartvelian (Proto-Georgian) indicate that this protolanguage possessed just one phonemic vowel.

See also

• Alarodian languages