Hinuq language

The Hinuq language (autonym: гьинузас мец hinuzas mec, also known as Hinukh, Hinux, Ginukh, or Ginux) 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 [ru] (Hinukh: Hino). Hinukh is very closely related to Tsez, but they are not entirely mutually intelligible.

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Quick Facts Pronunciation, Native to ...

Hinuq
Hinukh, Ginukh
гьинузас мец hinuzas mec
Pronunciation	[hiˈnuzas mɛt͡s]
Native to	North Caucasus
Region	Southern Dagestan
Ethnicity	Hinukh people
Native speakers	635 (2020 census)^[1]
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Tsezic Tsez–Hinukh Hinuq
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`gin`
Glottolog	`hinu1240`
ELP	Hinukh
Hinuq
Hinukh is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010)
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

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

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Perspective

Vowels

Hinukh distinguishes 6 vowel qualities /a, e, i, o, u, y/, all of which can be either long or short. Two vowels can occur pharyngealized: /aˤ/ and /eˤ/. However, these are only used by the older generation. Today they are usually replaced by /i/.^{[citation needed]}

More information Front, Central ...

Vowels of Hinuq^[2]
	Front	Central	Back
High	/ɪ/ i /ʏ/ ü		/ʊ/ u
Mid	/ɛ/ e		/ɔ/ o
Low		/a/ a

Consonants

Like many Caucasian languages, Hinuq has a large number of consonants. In addition to voiced and unvoiced consonants, there are also ejectives.

More information Labial, Dental ...

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Morphology

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Perspective

It is an agglutinative language which makes mainly use of suffixes.

Nouns

Hinukh is an ergative-absolutive language and, like most Northeast Caucasian languages, shows a rich case system. There are six non-spatial cases (Absolutive, Ergative, First Genitive, Second Genitive, Dative, Instrumental) as well as 35 spatial cases. The spatial case system itself consists of two categories, location (cont, in, sub, spr, at, aloc, iloc) and orientation, expressed by the use of direction markers (Essive, Lative, First Ablative, Second Ablative, Directional). The plural suffix is almost invariably -be.

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. Some examples of nominal declension are given below.

More information gani'bull' Vowel stem, čeq'forest' Consonantic stem ...

	gani 'bull' Vowel stem	čeq 'forest' Consonantic stem	humer 'face' Consonantic stem
Singular	Absolutive Ergative Genitive 1 Genitive 2 cont-Essive at-Essive	gani ganíː ganiš ganižo ganiɬ ganiqo	čeq čeqi čeqiš čeqzo čeqeɬ čeqqo	humer humelii humeliš humeližo humeliɬ humeliqo
Plural	Absolutive Ergative Genitive 1 Genitive 2 cont-Essive at-Essive	ganibe ganižay ganižas ganižazo ganižaɬ ganižaqo	čeqbe čeqzay čeqzas čeqzazo čeqzaɬ čeqzaqo	humerbe humeližay humeližas humeližazo humeližaɬ humeližaqo

There are five genders in Hinuq which play an important role in the language's grammar.

Verbs

Tenses are marked synthetically on the verbs by means of affixes. As its sister languages Bezhta and Tsez, Hinukh differentiates between "witnessed past" (ending in -s or -š) and "unwitnessed past" (in -no); the present tense is marked with the suffix -ho. In the future tense, Hinukh distinguishes a "direct future" (-n), which is used only in the first person and an "indirect future" (-s) used for all other persons.

Numerals

The numeral system is vigesimal, which means that it is a base-20 system, a feature commonly found among the languages of the Caucasus.