Bats language

Information about Bats language

Bats (batsba motjiti)
Spoken in:Georgia
Region:Zemo-Alvani in Kakheti
Total speakers:3,420 (2000 WCD)
Ranking:
Genetic classification:
Official status
Official language of:
Regulated by:
Language codes
ISO 639-1
ISO 639-2cau
SIL
See also: Language – List of languages


Bats (also Batsi, Batsbi, Batsb, Batsaw, Tsova-Tush) is the language of the Bats people, a Caucasian minority group, and is part of the Nakh family of Caucasian languages. It had 2,500 to 3,000 speakers in 1975.

There is only one dialect. It exists only as a spoken language, as the Bats people use Georgian as their written language. The language is not mutually intelligible with either Chechen or Ingush, the other two members of the Nakh family.

The Bats are typical Georgians, Georgian Orthodox Christians. Ethnographically they are Tushetians, an ethnographical group of Georgians, living in the north-east of Georgia. Tushetia is divided into 4 clans, and one of them is Tsovata clan, the clan of Bats. Tsovata clan was in the Tsova Gorge, but now all members of it, all Tsova-Tushs live in the village of Zemo-Alvani.

History

Until the middle of the 19th century, the Bats lived in Tushetia, the mountain region of Northeast Georgia. The Tsova Gorge in Tushetia was inhabited by four Bats communities: the Sagirta, Otelta, Mozarta and Indurta. Later they settled on the Kakhetia Plain, in the village of Zemo-Alvani, where they still live. Administratively they are part of the Akhmeta district of Georgia. There are some families of Bats in Tbilisi and other bigger towns in Georgia.

Classification

Bats belongs to the Nakh family of Caucasian languages.

Geographic distribution

Most speakers of Bats live in the village of Zemo-Alvani, on the Kakhetia Plain, in the Akhmeta district of Georgia. There are some families of Bats in Tbilisi and other bigger towns in Georgia.

Sounds

Grammar

The first grammar of Bats – Über die Thusch-Sprache – was compiled by the German orientalist Anton Schiefner (1817-1879) making it into the first grammar of any indigenous Caucasian languages based on sound scientific principles.[1]

Bats has eight noun classes, the highest number among the Caucasian languages. Bats also has explicit inflections for agentivity of a verb; it makes a distinction between as woʒe I fell down (sc. through no fault of my own) and so woʒe I fell down (sc. and it was my own fault).

References

1. ^ Kevin Tuite (2007). The rise and fall and revival of the Ibero-Caucasian hypothesis, pp. 7-8. Historiographia Linguistica, 35 #1.

External links

Motto
ძალა ერთობაშია   (Georgian)
"Strength is in Unity"
Anthem
"Tavisupleba"
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Kakheti (Georgian: კახეთი) is a province in Eastern Georgia. It is bordered by the small mountainous province of Tusheti and mountain-range of Greater Caucasus to the north, Azerbaijan to the east and the south, and the Georgian province
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ISO 639 is the set of international standards that lists short codes for language names.

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A language is a system of symbols and the rules used to manipulate them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon.
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Bats people (Georgian: ბაცი) or the Batsbi (ბაცბი) are a small Nakh-speaking community in Georgia who are also known as the Tsova-Tushs
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Caucasus or Caucasia is a region in Eurasia bordered on the north by Russia, on the southwest by Turkey, on the west by the Black Sea, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. The Caucasus includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands.
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The Nakh languages are a small family of languages spoken mostly in Russia (Chechnya and Ingushetia) and Georgia. The Chechen diaspora is spread all over the Muslim countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.
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languages of the Caucasus are a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
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Georgian (ქართული ენა, kartuli ena) is the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.

Georgian is the primary language of about 3.
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The Chechen language (Нохчийн мотт / Noxçiyn mott) (Medieval Chechen: نوًچین موت) is spoken by more than 1.
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Ingush is a language spoken by approximately 415,000 people (2005), known as the Ingush, across a region covering Ingushetia, Chechnya, Kazakhstan and Russia. In Ingush, the language is called ГІалгІай Ğalğaj
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Tusheti, or Tushetia, is a historic region in northeast Georgia.

Geography

Located on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, Tusheti is bordered by the Russian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan to the north and east, respectively; and by the
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Akhmeta is a very old region in the Kakheti province of Georgia. It is the home for Zurab Zviadauri, gold medalist in judo.

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Tbilisi
თბილის?

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The Nakh languages are a small family of languages spoken mostly in Russia (Chechnya and Ingushetia) and Georgia. The Chechen diaspora is spread all over the Muslim countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.
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languages of the Caucasus are a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
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Akhmeta is a very old region in the Kakheti province of Georgia. It is the home for Zurab Zviadauri, gold medalist in judo.

Coordinates:
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Tbilisi
თბილის?

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Location of Tbilisi in Georgia
Coordinates:
Country Georgia
Established c. 450 A.D.
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Anthem
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Orientalism is the study of Near and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, and peoples by Western scholars. It can also refer to the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists.
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In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly
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