BEZHTA LANGUAGE

The 'Bezhta language' (Bezhta: 'бежкьа миц', ''bežƛʼa mic'', also known as 'Kapucha') belongs to the Tsezic group of the North Caucasian language family. It is a language spoken by about 10,000 people in southern Dagestan, Russia.
Bezhta can be further divided into three dialects — Bezhta Proper, Tljadali and Hoshar-Hota — which are spoken in various villages in the region. Its closest linguistic relatives are Hunzib, Tsez, Khwarshi and Hinukh. It is also related to the Avar language, but the two are not mutually intelligible. Bezhta is an unwritten language, but various attempts have been made to develop an official orthography for the language. The Bezhta people use Avar as literary language. The first book ever printed in Bezhta was the Gospel of Luke.

Contents

Phonology

Morphology

Numerals

Sample of the Bezhta language

External links

Phonology

Bezhta has a rich consonantal and — unlike its relatives Tsez and Avar — a relatively large vowel inventory (18 distinct vowel phonemes), compared to other languages of the same family.

Morphology

The Bezhta language is a mostly agglutinative one and the vast amount of locative cases makes its case system particularly rich. The verb morphology is relatively simple, though. It is an ergative language.

Numerals

Different from Tsez, Bezhta has a decimal system with the word for twenty being an exception.

	Latin	Cyrillic
1	hõs	гьонс
2	qʼona	къона
3	łana	лъана
4	ṏqʼönä	оьнкъоьнаь
5	łina	лъина
6	iłna	илъна
7	aƛna	алIна
8	beƛna	белIна
9	äčʼena	аьчIена
10	acʼona	ацIона
20	qona	хъона
100	hõsčʼitʼ / -čʼitʼ	гьонсчIитI / -чIитI
1000	hazay	гьазай

★ Multiples of 10 higher than 20 are formed by adding the suffix '-yig' ('-йиг') to the multiplier. Hence, the word for 30 is 'łanayig' ('лъанайиг').

★ Compound numbers are formed by juxtaposition, the smaller numbers following the greater ones. The number 47 is thus expressed as 'ṏqʼönäyig aƛna' ('оь^нкъоьнаьйиг алIна').

Sample of the Bezhta language

This is a passage taken from the Gospel of Luke written in a Cyrillic orthography based on Avar and Chechen, a latinized transcription and one in IPA.

CYRILLIC	LATIN TRANSCRIPTION	IPA TRANSCRIPTION	TRANSLATION
			Jesus said to the followers:
			When you pray, pray like this:
			"O Father, we pray that your name will always be kept holy,
			we pray that your kingdom will come;
			give us the food we need for each day;
			forgive us the sins we have done, because we forgive every person that has done wrong to us.
			And don't let us be tempted."

External links

★ Ethnologue report for Bezhta

★ The Peoples of the Red Book: THE BEZHTAS