Svan language

Svan ( lušnu nin; Georgian: , romanized: Template:Ka-translit) is a Kartvelian language spoken in the western Georgian region of Svaneti primarily by the Svan people. With its speakers variously estimated to be between 30,000 and 80,000, the UNESCO designates Svan as a "definitely endangered language". It is of particular interest because it has retained many features that have been lost in the other Kartvelian languages.

Features

Familial features

Like all languages of the Caucasian language family, Svan has a large number of consonants. It has agreement between subject and object, and a split-ergative morphosyntactic system. Verbs are marked for aspect, evidentiality and "version".

Distinguishing features

Svan retains the voiceless aspirated uvular plosive, , and the glides and . It has a larger vowel inventory than Georgian; the Upper Bal dialect of Svan has the most vowels of any South-Caucasian language, having both long and short versions of plus , a total of 18 vowels (Georgian, by contrast, has just five).

Its morphology is less regular than that of the other three sister languages, and there are notable differences in conjugation.

Distribution

Svan is the native language of fewer than 30,000 Svans (15,000 of whom are Upper Svan dialect speakers and 12,000 are Lower Svan), living in the mountains of Svaneti, i.e. in the districts of Mestia and Lentekhi of Georgia, along the Enguri, Tskhenistsqali and Kodori rivers. Some Svan speakers live in the Kodori Valley of the de facto independent republic of Abkhazia. Although conditions there make it difficult to reliably establish their numbers, there are only an estimated 2,500 Svan individuals living there.

The language is used in familiar and casual social communication. It has no written standard or official status. Most speakers also speak Georgian. The language is considered endangered, as proficiency in it among young people is limited.

History

Svan is the most differentiated member of the four South-Caucasian languages and is believed to have split off in the 2nd millennium BC or earlier, about one thousand years before Georgian and Zan split from each other.

Soviet ethnologist Evdokia Kozhevnikova extensively documented the Svan language during her fieldwork in Svaneti in the 1920s and 1930s.

Dialects

The Svan language is divided into the following dialects and subdialects:

• Upper Svan (about 15,000 speakers)
  • Upper Bal: Ushguli, Kala, Ipar, Mulakh, Mestia, Lenzer, Latal.
  • Lower Bal: Becho, Tskhumar, Etser, Par, Chubekh, Lakham.
• Lower Svan (about 12,000 speakers)
  • Lashkhian: Lashkh.
  • Lentekhian: Lentekhi, Kheled, Khopur, Rtskhmelur, Cholur

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant inventory of Svan is more or less the same as that of Old Georgian. That is, compared to Modern Georgian, it also has , and , but the labiodental fricative only appears as an allophone of in the Ln dialect. Furthermore, the uvular consonants and  are realized as affricates, i.e.  and .

Svan consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m Template:IPAslink მ	n Template:IPAslink ნ
Plosive	voiced	b Template:IPAslink ბ	d Template:IPAslink დ		g Template:IPAslink გ
	aspirated	p Template:IPAslink ფ	t Template:IPAslink თ		k Template:IPAslink ქ	q Template:IPAslink ჴ
	ejective	ṗ Template:IPAslink პ	ṭ Template:IPAslink ტ		ḳ Template:IPAslink კ	q̇ Template:IPAslink ყ	ʔ Template:IPAslink ჸ
Affricate	voiced		ʒ Template:IPAslink ძ	ǯ Template:IPAslink ჯ
	aspirated		c Template:IPAslink ც	č Template:IPAslink ჩ
	ejective		ċ Template:IPAslink წ	čʼ Template:IPAslink ჭ
Fricative	voiced	(v Template:IPAblink ვ)	z Template:IPAslink ზ	ž Template:IPAslink ჟ		ɣ Template:IPAslink ღ
	voiceless		s Template:IPAslink ს	š Template:IPAslink შ		x Template:IPAslink ხ	h Template:IPAslink ჰ
Approximant		w Template:IPAslink უ̂	l Template:IPAslink ლ	y Template:IPAslink ჲ
Trill			r Template:IPAslink რ

Vowels

The vowel inventory of Svan varies between different dialects. For instance, Proto-Svan phonemic long vowels occur in the Upper Bal, Cholur and Lashkh dialects, but have been lost in the Lentekh and Lower Bal dialects. Compared to Georgian, Svan also has a central or back unrounded high vowel (realized as ), the low front (except for Lashkh) and the front rounded vowels and (also except for Lashkh). The front rounded vowels are often realized as diphthongs  and and are therefore sometimes not treated as separate phonemes.

	Front				Central		Back
	unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	Template:IPAslink ი i	Template:IPAslink ი̄ ī	Template:IPAslink უ̈, ჳი ü	Template:IPAslink უ̄̈ ṻ			Template:IPAslink უ u	Template:IPAslink უ̄ ū
Close-mid	Template:IPAslink ე e	Template:IPAslink ჱ ē			Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn ჷ ə	Template:IPAslink ჷ̄ ə̄
Open-mid			Template:IPAslink ო̈, ჳე ö	Template:IPAslink ო̄̈ ō̈			Template:IPAslink ო o	Template:IPAslink ო̄ ō
Open	Template:IPAslink ა̈ ä	Template:IPAslink ა̄̈ ā̈					Template:IPAslink ა a	Template:IPAslink ა̄ ā

Alphabet

File:Road sign in Svan language, Tvebishi village, late October 2020.jpg

Road sign in Svan language, that contains only Svan-specific letters, and romanized variant

The alphabet, illustrated above, is similar to the Mingrelian alphabet, with a few additional letters otherwise obsolete in the Georgian script:

• ჶ
• ჴ
• ჸ
• ჲ
• უ̂
• ჷ
• ჱ

These are supplemented by diacritics on the vowels (the umlaut for front vowels and macron for length), though those are not normally written. The digraphs

• ჳი ("wi")
• ჳე ("we")

are used in the Lower Bal and Lentekh dialects, and occasionally in Upper Bal; these sounds do not occur in Lashkh dialect.

External links

• Svan at TITUS database
• ECLING - Svan (includes audio/video samples).
• Svan alphabet and language at Omniglot
• Svan Youth literature in Svan language
• Svan DoReCo corpus compiled by Jost Gippert. Audio recordings of narrative texts, with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level and translations.
• Svan (Lashkh Dialect) recordings and audio samples.