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Ethnologue > Web version > Country index > Europe > Russian Federation (Europe) > Chechen

Chechen

A language of Russian Federation (Europe)

ISO 639-3: che

Population	1,330,000 in Russian Federation (2002 census). 233,216 monolinguals. Population total all countries: 1,341,000. Ethnic population: 1,360,253.
Region	Chechnya, north Caucasus. 63% in rural areas. Also in Georgia, Germany, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Syria, Turkey (Asia), Uzbekistan.
Language map	European Russia, reference number 11
Alternate names	Galancho, Nokchiin Muott, Nokhchiin
Dialects	Ploskost, Itumkala (Shatoi), Melkhin, Kistin, Cheberloi, Akkin (Aux). Melkhi transitional dialect to Ingush [inh]. Chechen partially intelligible with Ingush.
Classification	North Caucasian, East Caucasian, Nakh, Chechen-Ingush
Language use	The largest Nakh-Daghestanian language. Used in publishing. Most also use Russian.
Language development	Taught in primary schools. Newspapers. Radio programs. Dictionary. Grammar. NT: 2007.
Writing system	Cyrillic script.
Comments	Many Russians, Ingush, Ossetins, and other peoples live among them. 1944–1957 were deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia. Lost 25%–50% population, much land, economic resources, and civil rights. Have been largely removed from productive lowlands. Ergative case system; many consonants and vowels; extensive inflectional morphology, many nominal cases, several gender classes; complex sentences by chaining participial clauses; verbs have gender agreement with the direct object or intransitive subject, but no person agreement (Johanna Nichols). Pastoralists; agriculturalists: grain. Muslim (Sunni, Sufi).

Also spoken in:

Jordan

Language name	Chechen
Population	3,000 in Jordan (Johnstone 1993).
Region	2 or 3 villages mixed among Adygey [ady] and Arabic speakers.
Comments	Muslim (Sunni, Sufi).

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

KOMEN, Erwin R., author. 2007. Chechen vowel inventory.  

KOMEN, Erwin R., author. 2007. Focus in Chechen.  

KOMEN, Erwin R., author. 2007. Chechen stress and vowel deletion: an optimality theory approach.