Bats language

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

Bats
Batsbä Moț ბაცბაჼმოტ
Native to	North Caucasus
Region	Zemo-Alvani in Kakheti
Native speakers	500 (1997)[1] far fewer than 3,000 active (2007)
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Nakh Bats
Writing system	Georgian script[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bbl
Glottolog	bats1242
ELP	Batsbi[3]

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' – (Bats language), whereas others 3 tribes (Gometsari, Piriqiti and Chagma-Tush) 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-(it) ma-(not) lo-(given or given up).

Tcokalta – name of a village. Bats, "fox mountain". Tcokal - (Fox) ta- (Mountain).

Maqalati – during festivals the term is used to describe people (with wooden swords) 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 (except for u, which has no long form). Bats also has a number of diphthongs, ei, ui, oi, ai, ou, and au.[4] 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 [ɛ], 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.[5]

Consonant Phonemes of Bats[6]

			Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal(ized)	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Nasal			m	n
Plosive	aspirated	lenis	pʰ	tʰ	t͜sʰ	t͡ʃʰ	kʰ	qʰ		ʔ
	voiceless	fortis		tː				qː
	voiced		b	d	d͜z	d͡ʒ	g
	ejective	lenis	pʼ	tʼ	t͜sʼ	t͡ʃʼ	kʼ	qʼ
		fortis		tːʼ				qːʼ
Fricative	voiceless	lenis			s	ʃ	x		ħ	h
		fortis			sː		xː
		lateral			ɬ
	voiced		v		z	ʒ	ɣ		ʕ
Approximant		lenis		l		j
		fortis		lː
Flap					ɾ

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 an indigenous Caucasian languages based on sound scientific principles.[7]

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.[6] This analysis (not unlike analyses of Lak) 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 (15 nouns)	bak "fist" bʕarkʼ "eye" čʼqʼempʼŏ ‘throat’
*D/J	d	j	body parts (4 nouns)	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.

Cases	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	nekʼ	nekʼi	cokʼal	cokʼli
Genitive	nekʼe^n	nekʼa^n	cokʼle^n	cokʼla^n
Dative	nekʼen	nekʼin	cokʼlen	cokʼlin
Ergative, Instrumental	nekʼev	nekʼiv	cokʼlev	cokʼliv
Contacting case	nek’ex	nekʼax	cokʼlex	cokʼlax
Allative	nekʼegŏ	nekʼigŏ	cokʼlegŏ	cokʼligŏ
Adverbial	nekʼeǧ	nekʼiǧ	cokʼleǧ	cokʼliǧ
Commitive case	nekʼci^n, nekʼeci^n	nekʼici^n	cokʼleci^n	cokʼlici^n
	“knife”		“fox”

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.[6] When modifying nominals, the numeral precedes the noun it modifies.

Basic Numbers 1 cħa 11 cħajtʼː 1+10 2 ši 12 šiitʼː 2+10 3 qo 13 qoitʼː 3+10 4 Dʕivʔ 14 Dʕevajtʼː 4+10 5 pxi 15 pxiitʼː 5+10 6 jetx 16 jetxajtʼː 6+10 7 vorɬ 17 vorɬajtʼː 7+10 8 barɬ 18 barɬajtʼː 8+10 9 isː 19 tʼqʼexc’ 20-1 10 itʼː 20 tʼqʼa		Higher Decads 21 tʼqʼacħa 20+1 22 tʼqʼaš 20+2 30 tʼqʼaitʼː 20+10 31 tʼqʼacħaitʼː (20+1)+10 32 tʼqʼašiitʼː (20+2)+10 40 šauztʼqʼ 2×20 50 šauztʼqʼaitʼː (2×20)+10 60 qouztʼqʼ 3×20 70 qouztʼqʼaitʼː (3×20)+10 80 Dʕe(v)uztʼqʼ 4×20 90 Dʕe(v)uztʼqʼaitʼː (4×20)+10 100 pxauztʼqʼ 5×20 120 jexcʼatʼqʼ from jetxcʼatʼqʼ 6x20 160 barɬcʼatʼqʼ 8×20 200 icʼatʼqʼ from itʼːcʼatʼqʼ 10x20 1000 atas from Georgian

In Bats, as in its closest relatives Chechen and Ingush, the number Dʕivʔ "four" actually begins with a noun-class marker, represented by D (by default, or another capital for the other classes). 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 (males)". This is seen in the word "four" itself as well as its derivatives.

Verbs

Bats has explicit inflections for agentivity of a verb; it makes a distinction between as woʒe I fell down (i.e. through no fault of my own) and so woʒe I fell down (i.e. and it was my own fault).

References

1. "UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger". www.unesco.org. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
2. "Batsbi alphabet, pronunciation and language". Omniglot.com. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
3. Endangered Languages Project data for Batsbi.
4. HG1994
5. Hauk, Bryn; Hakim, Jacob (Summer 2019). "Acoustic properties of singleton and geminate ejectives in Tsova-Tush" (PDF). ICPhS 2019 Conference Proceedings.
6. Holisky, Dee Ann and Gagua, Rusudan, 1994. "Tsova-Tush (Batsbi)", in The indigenous languages of the Caucasus Vol 4, Rieks Smeets, editor. Caravan Books, pp. 147-212
7. Kevin Tuite (2007). The rise and fall and revival of the Ibero-Caucasian hypothesis, pp. 7-8. Historiographia Linguistica, 35 #1.

External links

• The Red Book of Peoples of the Russian Empire: The Bats
• Languages of the World report
• Bats basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database