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Svan (ლუშნუ ნინ lušnu nin; Georgian: სვანური ენა, romanized: svanuri ena) is a Kartvelian language spoken in the western Georgian region of Svaneti primarily by the Svan people.[2][3] With its speakers variously estimated to be between 30,000 and 80,000, the UNESCO designates Svan as a "definitely endangered language".[4] It is of particular interest because it has retained many archaic features that have been lost in the other Kartvelian languages.

Svan
ლუშნუ ნინ Lušnu nin
Pronunciation	[luʃnu nin]
Native to	Georgia
Region	Svaneti Abkhazia
Ethnicity	Svans
Native speakers	14,000 (2015)[1]
Language family	Kartvelian Svan
Writing system	Georgian script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sva
Glottolog	svan1243
ELP	Svan
Svan is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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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, /qʰ/, and the glides /w/ and /j/. 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 /a ɛ i ɔ u æ ø y/ plus /ə eː/, 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.[5]

The language is used in familiar and casual social communication. It has no written standard or official status.[6] Most speakers also speak Georgian. The language is regarded as being 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 Mingrelian split from each other.

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 /j/, /q/ and /w/, but the labiodental fricative only appears as an allophone of /w/ in the Ln dialect. Furthermore, the uvular consonants /q/ and /q’/ are realized as affricates, i.e. [q͡χ] and [q͡χʼ].[7]

Svan consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/ მ	n /n/ ნ
Plosive	voiced	b /b/ ბ	d /d/ დ		g /ɡ/ გ
	aspirated	p /pʰ/ ფ	t /tʰ/ თ		k /kʰ/ ქ	q /qʰ/ ჴ
	ejective	ṗ /pʼ/ პ	ṭ /tʼ/ ტ		ḳ /kʼ/ კ	qʼ /qʼ/ ყ	ʔ /ʔ/ ჸ
Affricate	voiced		ʒ /d͡z/ ძ	ǯ /d͡ʒ/ ჯ
	aspirated		c /t͡sʰ/ ც	č /t͡ʃʰ/ ჩ
	ejective		ċ /t͡sʼ/ წ	čʼ /t͡ʃʼ/ ჭ
Fricative	voiced	(v [v] ვ)	z /z/ ზ	ž /ʒ/ ჟ		ɣ /ʁ/ ღ
	voiceless		s /s/ ს	š /ʃ/ შ		x /χ/ ხ	h /h/ ჰ
Approximant		w /w/ ჳ	l /l/ ლ	y /j/ ჲ
Trill			r /r/ 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 Lashx dialects, but have been lost in the Lent’ex and Lower Bal dialects. Compared to Georgian, Svan also have a central or back unrounded high vowel /ə/ (realized as [ɯ]~[ɨ], the low front /æ/ (except for Lashx) and the front rounded vowels /œ/ and /y/ (also except for Lashx). The front rounded vowels are often realized as diphthongs [we] and [wi] and are therefore sometimes not treated as separate phonemes.[7]

	Front				Central		Back
	unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	/i/ ი i	/iː/ ი̄ ī	/y/ უ̈, ჳი ü	/yː/ უ̄̈ ṻ			/u/ უ u	/uː/ უ̄ ū
Close-mid	/e/ e	/eː/ ჱ ē			/ə/[lower-alpha 1] ჷ ə	/əː/ ჷ̄ ə̄
Open-mid			/œ/ ო̈, ჳე ö	/œː/ ო̄̈ ō̈			/ɔ/ ო o	/ɔː/ ო̄ ō
Open	/æ/ ა̈ ä	/æː/ ა̄̈ ā̈					/ɑ/ ა a	/ɑː/ ა̄ ā

Alphabet

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

• ჶ /f/
• ჴ /q⁽ʰ⁾/
• ჸ /ʔ/
• ჲ /j/
• ჳ /w/
• ჷ /ə/
• ჱ /eː/

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") /y/
• ჳე ("we") /œ/

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

References

Notes

General references

• Palmaitis, Mykolas Letas; Gudjedjiani, Chato (1986). Upper Svan: Grammar and texts. Vilnius: Mokslas.
• Oniani, Aleksandre (2005). Die swanische Sprache (Teil I: Phonologie, Morphonologie, Morphologie des Nomens; Teil II: Morphologie des Verbs, Verbal-nomen, Udeteroi). Translated by Fähnrich, Heinz. Jena: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität.
• Tuite, Kevin (1997). Svan (PDF). Languages of the World, Materials, vol. 139. Munich: LINCOM-Europa. ISBN 978-3895861543.

External links

• Svan at TITUS database
• ECLING - Svan (includes audio/video samples).
• Svan alphabet and language at Omniglot
• Svan Youth literature in Svan language

На других языках

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[de] Swanische Sprache

Das Swanische (Eigenbezeichnung: ლუშნუ ნინ .mw-parser-output .Latn{font-family:"Akzidenz Grotesk","Arial","Avant Garde Gothic","Calibri","Futura","Geneva","Gill Sans","Helvetica","Lucida Grande","Lucida Sans Unicode","Lucida Grande","Stone Sans","Tahoma","Trebuchet","Univers","Verdana"}lušnu nin, georgisch სვანური ენა svanuri ena) wird von mindestens 15.000, höchstens 30.000 Menschen hauptsächlich in der Region Swanetien in Georgien gesprochen, sowie westlicher im Kodori-Tal, das zum separatistischen, von Georgien beanspruchten Abchasien gehört. Sprecher des Swanischen leben ferner in anderen Teilen Georgiens und im Ausland. Das Swanische gehört zur Familie der südkaukasischen (kartwelischen) Sprachen. Es ist keine offizielle Schriftsprache, etablierte Schriftsprache der Swanen ist bis heute das Georgische und sie gelten in Georgien traditionell als Subethnie der Georgier.

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- [en] Svan language

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[es] Idioma esvano

El idioma esvano o svano (en esvano: ლუშნუ ნინ, romanizado: lušnu nin; en georgiano, სვანური ენა, romanizado: svanuri ena), también denominado suano, es una lengua kartveliana hablada por los esvanos en el noroeste de Georgia.[1][2] Con sus hablantes estimados de diversas formas entre 30,000 y 80,000 y la cantidad de jóvenes que lo hablan habiendo disminuido sustancialmente, la UNESCO y ELP lo designan como "susceptible de extinción".[3]

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[fr] Svane

Le svane (en svane : ლუშნუ ნინ, lushnu nin ; géorgien : სვანური ენა, svanuri ena) est une langue parlée dans le nord-ouest de la Géorgie.

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[it] Lingua svan

La lingua svan o svano (ლუშნუ ნინ, lušnu nin, in georgiano: სვანური ენა?, svanuri ena) è una lingua cartvelica parlata in Georgia, nella regione della Svanezia, dal sottogruppo etnico degli Svani.

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[ru] Сванский язык

Сва́нский язы́к (самоназвание лушну нин, ლუშნუ ნინ) — язык сванов, один из картвельских языков.

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