Bats language
Bats is the endangered 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 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.
History
Tusheti, the northeastern mountainous region of Georgia, is home to four tribes that consider themselves Tushetians. The tribes are: Batsbi - also known as Tsovatush, Gometsari, Piriqiti, and Chagma-Tush. Tsovatush people make up 50% of Tushetians. As of today only several hundred Tsovatush people speak Batsbur Mott – ,whereas others 3 tribes have lost the language. Evidence exists that the other three Tushetian tribes formerly spoke Bats is evident in toponymics, suggesting that all Tushetians spoke Bats, and over time Georgian language, replaced Bats.Few examples of the Bats language as spoken by the Gometsari, Piriqiti, and Chagma-Tush tribes:
Omalo – name of a village. Bats, "Won't give up."
O- ma- lo-.
Tcokalta – name of a village. Bats, "fox mountain". Tcokal - ta-.
Maqalati – during festivals the term is used to describe people serving the guests - they are the hosts and peacekeepers. "Standing above" in Bats, like an overseer/peacekeeper. Maqa – above or over latt – stand.
Dalaoba – Dalla – Bats, God.
Qokebi – Qoki' – Bats, ''foot, foot wear".
Bats Language is the only way to shed some light to the history of Tushetian mountains. The mountainous terrain preserved the culture and traditions of Tushetians, but isolation didn’t help much in documenting the people and life in Tushetia. Other than Bats, only few records can give us slight glimpse in the past shrouded in mystery.
Classification
Bats belongs to the Nakh family of Northeast Caucasian languages.Geographic distribution
Most speakers of Bats live in the village of Zemo-Alvani, on the Kakhetia Plain, in the Akhmeta Municipality of Georgia. There are some families of Bats in Tbilisi and other bigger towns in Georgia.Phonology
Vowels
Bats has a typical triangular five-vowel system with short–long contrast. Bats also has a number of diphthongs, ei, ui, oi, ai, ou, and au. All vowels and diphthongs have nasalized allophones that are the result of phonetic and morphophonemic processes; this is represented by a superscript n, as in kʼnateⁿ boy-GEN.| Front | Back | |
| High | i, iː | u |
| Mid | e , eː | o, oː |
| Low | a, aː |
Consonants
Bats has a relatively typical consonant inventory for a Northeast Caucasian language. Unlike its close relatives, Chechen and Ingush, Bats has retained the lateral fricative /ɬ/. Also notable is the presence of two geminate ejectives, tːʼ and qːʼ, which are cross-linguistically rare.Grammar
The first grammar of Bats – Über die Thusch-Sprache – was compiled by the German orientalist Anton Schiefner making it into the first grammar of an indigenous Caucasian languages based on sound scientific principles.Noun classes
Traditional analyses posit that Bats has eight noun classes, the highest number among the Northeast Caucasian languages—however, a more-recent analysis gives only five classes. This analysis yields the grouping shown below:| Label | Sg. | Pl. | Description | Members |
| M | v | b | male humans | mar "husband" ʕuv "shepherd" voħ "son" |
| F | j | d | female humans | nan "mother" pstʼu "wife" joħ "daughter" |
| D | d | d | various | bader "child" kʼuit’ĭ "cat" dokʼ "heart" ditx "meat" |
| Bd | b | d | animals | carkʼ "tooth" maiqĭ "bread" qʼar "rain" |
| J | j | j | various | pħu "dog" ča "bear" matx "sun" |
| *Bd/J | b | j | body parts | bak "fist" bʕarkʼ "eye" čʼqʼempʼŏ ‘throat’ |
| *D/J | d | j | body parts | batʼr "lip", larkʼ "ear" tʼotʼ "hand", čʼamaǧ "cheek" |
| *B/B | b | b | only 3 nouns | borag "knit slipper" čekam "boot" kakam "autumn wool" |
Under this analysis, the additional three classes are examples of inquorate gender, where the number of items displaying this behavior are insufficient to constitute an independent grouping. Furthermore, they can be explained as inflecting one class in the singular, and another in the plural, e.g. the B/B group agrees as if it belonged to the Bd class in the singular but the male human class in the plural.
Noun cases
Batsbi makes use of nine noun cases total, though in the majority of nouns, the ergative and instrumental cases have a common form.Numerals
Like most of its relatives, Bats' numerals are vigesimal, using 20 as a common base. This is mainly evident in the construction of higher decads, so that 40 šauztʼqʼ formed from 2 × 20 and 200 icʼatʼqʼ is 10 × 20. When modifying nominals, the numeral precedes the noun it modifies.In Bats, as in its closest relatives Chechen and Ingush, the number Dʕivʔ "four" actually begins with a noun-class marker, represented by D. This marker will agree in class with the class of the nominal which the number modifies, even if that nominal is not overtly expressed and is only apparent through pragmatic or discursive context, as in Vʕivʔev "four ". This is seen in the word "four" itself as well as well as its derivatives. VerbsBats has explicit inflections for agentivity of a verb; it makes a distinction between ' I fell down and ' I fell down. |