The North Caucasic Thread

[Morrígan]

Not to imply that take seriously the claim that the East and West Caucasian families are related, but they ought to be considered together, side-by-side due to their enduring proximity.

Very little reliable historical and comparative work seems to be available (least of all in English), but hopefully some of this may be brought forth by our collective efforts. What I have to provide at the moment are a few grammars, and a larger number of individual papers. I think the main focus of this thread is to provide knowledge about languages in these families, and to consider historical relations and language contact outside those which are recent and well-established (viz. with Russian, and Turkic languages).

The List of Documents

I would like to call special attention to a few documents in particular:

Ingush Grammar (Nichols)
A Grammar of Khwarshi (Khalilova)
Tsova-Tush / Batsbi (Holisky)
Kabardian Grammar (Masatovic) & Kabardian Grammar (Colarusso)

These two are superb overviews of both families:
The East Caucasian Language Family (van den Berg)
North West Caucasian (Hewitt)


I think I have a more modern grammar of Batsbi/Tsova-Tush somewhere. I used to have access to a paper copy of a grammar of Hunzib (van den Berg), but never was able to digitize it. Same with Tsakhur. If anyone has access to these, or the multi-volume set the Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus especially as an e-book (assuming such a thing ever existed), it would be fantastic if you could provide that.

[Salmoneus]

The collection of grammars that was being passed around on #isharia a few years back (reminds me: is there an updated version?) also included grammars of abkhaz, adyghe, aghul, bezhta and godoberi. I'm sure someone more technologically competant than me will be able to upload them somewhere.

[Drydic]

An updated version may or may not be being worked on by certain dedicated individual(s).

[Salmoneus]

So long as certain dedicated individuals have focused the update on austronesian and amazonian languages, it's all good.

[Basilius]

Nikolayev & Starostin, A North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary (aka NCED): Preface

(The attempted reconstruction)

[Morrígan]

Nikolayev & Starostin, A North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary (aka NCED): Preface

This paper's complete lack of any comparative grammar was one of the things that convinced me that I was interested in NEC/NWC historical linguistics.

On that subject though, I don't think I've really seen any literature directly addressing anything like the properties of Proto-Vainakh, or Proto-Tsezic. I find it hard to believe that this sort of thing was never published (even in English).

[Tropylium]

(Crossposting from the Correspondence Library.)

Here it is in IPA:

Code: Select all

Comm  AbzP  AbzT  Bzyp  Ahch  Khal  Tswy  Ashk  Tapa
dʑ    dz    dz    dʑ    dz    dz    dz    dz    dz
tɕ    ts    ts    tɕ    ts    ts    ts    ts    ts 
tɕʼ   tsʼ   tsʼ   tɕʼ   tsʼ   tsʼ   tsʼ   tsʼ   tsʼ
dʑʷ   dʑʷ   dʑʷ   dʑʷ   dʑʷ   dʑʷ   dʑʷ   dʑʷ   dʑ(ʷ)/dʒʷ
tɕʷ   tɕʷ   tɕʷ   tɕʷ   tɕʷ   tɕʷ   tɕʷ   tɕʷ   tɕ(ʷ)/tʃʷ
tɕʷʼ  tɕʷʼ  tɕʷʼ  tɕʷʼ  tɕʷʼ  tɕʷʼ  tɕʷʼ  tɕʷʼ  tɕ(ʷ)ʼ/tʃʷʼ
dʒʷ   v     v     v     v     v     v     v     dz
tʃʷ   f     f     f     f     f     f     f     ts
tʃʷʼ  fʼ    pʼ    pʼ    pʼ    fʼ    fʼ    fʼ    tsʼ

Typological sanity check: there are supposed to have been palatalized, labialized, labiopalatalized, and postalveolar palatalized affricates in proto-Abxaz, but no plain alveolar affricates?

I'm gonna suggest that the 3rd series may have been the plain series actually: retained in Tapanta, fronted a la *ts → *tθ → *θ → f elsewhere (and, outside of Bzyp, accompanied with the plain palatalized series then also fronting). Postulating rounding that's unattested anywhere sounds like a poor idea.

Wikipedia suggests that these correspond to /ts/ etc. in Abaza as well, though additionally mentions a stable alveolar affricate series too. I suppose this could be accounted for with a laminal/apical distinction.

[Nortaneous]

The plain alveolar affricates were preserved unchanged, I think.

As for the shift to labials: you don't need any intermediate steps. Abkhaz 'rounding' has four different mechanisms that apply to different consonants, and one of them is labiodentalization.

abkhazrounding.png (61.94 KiB) Viewed 3376 times

I'm guessing they were labiodentalized in the protolang.

[Morrígan]

I haven't really had time to type anything up or go over the data in great detail, but I'll just propose a question, and hopefully can look into things this weekend.

NEC gender/class markers kind of look like NWC pronouns/subject markers. Coincidence?

[Nesescosac]

That collection of grammars doesn't have this Abkhaz grammar by George Hewitt. In addition there's this paper on long-distance agreement and topic in Tsez.

Although now I must ask - when such an update is completed, it will surely be posted here on the ZBB, won't it?

[Drydic]

In addition there's this paper on long-distance agreement and topic in Tsez.

The website says the file upload was interrupted :'(

[Nesescosac]

The website says the file upload was interrupted :'(

Hmm, that's weird. Try this, then.

[Drydic]

Yay it worked! :3

[Morrígan]

I found the newer grammar for Batsbi that I was looking for.