N(N)LE "Sagirta"
Director
Philology
N/A
Tbilisi, Georgia
tinatintsiskarishvili@gmail.com
Abstract
The Most Endangered Language in Georgia Georgians speak four native languages: in addition to Georgian, Mingrelian-Laz, and Svan, there also exists an ancient language of the Nakh language family preserved to this day by bilingual Tush people – a language currently facing extinction and remaining virtually unexplored. For many years, it has no longer been taught as a subject at any higher educational institution. It was precisely the grammar of this language that became the first scientific grammar among all Iberian-Caucasian languages: the work of the German linguist Anton Schiefner, Versuch über die Tusch-Sprache…, St. Petersburg, 1856. The paper pays special attention to one of the principal challenges facing the aforementioned Tusch-Sprache: the necessity for researchers to agree on a common name for the language. The article emphasizes the importance of restoring a term acceptable to the linguistic community itself, instead of the various designations imposed during the previous century and spread through Georgian, Russian, and English academic as well as public discourse: Batsbur, Tsova-Tush, Tsovatush, Tsovatis Tushuri, Tsouri, Tsovuri, Tush-Tsouri, and others – terms that are often used interchangeably within the same book, or even within a single scholarly article. It is also important to note that the Georgian graphemes used for recording Tush (Tsova-Tush) texts require further standardization and refinement. These graphemes will be essential both for the revision and expansion of Davit and Niko Kadagidze’s dictionary (Tsova-Tush–Georgian–Russian Dictionary) and for language teaching through textbooks, supplementary literature, and other educational resources, in order to simplify the process of working on the language and to ensure that pronunciation corresponds as closely as possible to the written form. The article stresses the urgent need to document, using audio technologies, both the materials recorded by linguists and preserved by the local population, as well as newly created texts. Achieving this requires greater popularization of the language and increased scholarly interest in it. In order to demonstrate the linguistic layers of the Tush (Tsova-Tush) language, attract researchers –especially young scholars – and illustrate the archaic nature of the language, the paper presents and analyzes a particularly interesting paradigm. It discusses several lexical units sharing common roots in Georgian, Kartvelian, and Tush (Tsova-Tush), as well as notable borrowings between the languages in both directions. The article also attempts to explain a toponym that had attracted the interest of Ivane Javakhishvili. In addition, the article proposes for adoption into standard literary Georgian a word from Tush speech that could replace a widely used barbarism that entered Georgian through the Russian language. The complete stagnation of language research and teaching over recent decades, the emigration of middle-aged native speakers from the country, and the absence of even the simplest textbooks, methodological guidelines, or educational materials for younger generations have created a situation in which, within only two decades, there may remain only fragmentary speakers of the language. The purpose of this article is to support the mobilization of scholars and language speakers in order to slow this process and prolong the life of the Tush (Tsova-Tush) language through collective efforts and the use of modern technologies for documentation. It is essential that neither the general public in Georgia nor parts of the academic community maintain vague or incorrect perceptions about the language and its speakers, as such misconceptions hinder the language and accelerate its extinction. The article demonstrates that the language is still alive: people continue to write poetry, translate texts, and compose stories in it – and therefore it deserves support.