The Svan language is a Kartvelian language spoken in the Western Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 region of Svaneti

Svaneti

Svaneti is a historic province in Georgia, in the northwestern part of the country. It is inhabited by the Svans, a geographic subgroup of the Georgians.- Geography :...

 primarily by the Georgians

Georgians

The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....

 of Svan origin

Svans

The Svans are a group of Georgians that mostly live in Svaneti, a region of Georgia speaking the Svan language. The self designated Svan is Mushüan, known to the ancient authors as Misimian.-History:...

. With its speakers variously estimated to be between 30,000 and 80,000, the UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

 designates the Svan as a "definitely endangered language

Endangered language

An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....

".

Familial features

Like all languages of the Kartvelian family, Svan has a large number of consonants. It has agreement between subject and object, and a split-ergative

Split ergativity

Split ergativity is shown by languages that have a partly ergative behaviour, but employ another syntax or morphology — usually accusative — in some contexts...

 morphosyntactic system

Morphosyntactic alignment

In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of transitive verbs and those of intransitive verbs...

. Verbs are marked for aspect

Grammatical aspect

In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...

, evidentiality

Evidentiality

In linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and/or what kind of evidence exists. An evidential is the particular grammatical element that indicates evidentiality...

 and "version".

Distinguishing features

Svan retains the voiceless aspirated uvular plosive, /qʰ/, and the glides /w/ and /j/. It has a larger vowel inventory than Georgian; the Upper Bal dialect of Svan has the most vowels of any Kartvelian language, having both long and short versions of /a ɛ i ɔ u æ ø y/ plus /ə eː/, a total of 18 vowels (Georgian, by contrast, has just five).

Its morphology is less regular than that of the other three sister languages, and there are notable differences in verbal inflections.

Distribution

Svan is the native language of less than 30,000 Svans (15,000 of whom are Upper Svan dialect speakers and 12,000 are Lower Svan), living in the mountains of Svaneti

Svaneti

Svaneti is a historic province in Georgia, in the northwestern part of the country. It is inhabited by the Svans, a geographic subgroup of the Georgians.- Geography :...

, i.e. in the districts of Mestia

Mestia

Mestia is a highland townlet in northwest Georgia, at an elevation of 1,500 meters in the Caucasus Mountains.-General information:According to the current administrative subdivision of Georgia, Mestia is located in the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region , some 128 km northeast of the regional...

 and Lentekhi

Lentekhi

Lentekhi is a small town and Lentekhi District's capital in Georgia's western region of Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti, 323 km northwest to the nation's capital Tbilisi. Situated on the southern slope of the Central Caucasus, the district is a site of alpinism...

 of Georgia, along the Enguri, Tskhenistskali and Kodori

Kodori River

The Kodori, also known as Kodor, is one of the two largest rivers of Abkhazia, along with the Bzyb. It is formed by the joining of the rivers Sak'en and Gwandra. The Kodori is first among Abkhazia's rivers with respect to average annual discharge and drainage basin area , and second after the...

 rivers. Some Svan speakers live in the Kodori Valley

Kodori Valley

The Kodori Valley is a river valley in Abkhazia, Georgia's breakaway autonomous republic. The valley's upper part, populated by Svans, was the only corner of the post-1993 Abkhazia, directly controlled by the central Georgian government, which officially styles the area as Upper Abkhazia...

 of the de-facto independent republic of Abkhazia

Abkhazia

Abkhazia is a disputed political entity on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, called the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny...

. Although conditions there make it difficult to reliably establish their numbers, there are only an estimated 2,500 Svan individuals living there.

The language is used in familiar and casual social communication. It has no written standard or official status. Most speakers also speak Georgian

Georgian language

Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...

, the country's official language, and use it as their literary and business language. There is no official instruction in Svan, and the number of speakers is declining due to the dispersal of the Svan population in the face of increasing economic hardship. The language is regarded as being endangered, as proficiency in it among young people is limited.

History

Svan is the most differentiated member of the four Kartvelian (Kartvelian) languages, and is not intelligible with the other three (Georgian, Laz

Laz language

The Laz language is a South Caucasian language spoken by the Laz people on the Southeast shore of the Black Sea...

, and Mingrelian). Svan is believed to have separated from them in the 2nd millennium BC

2nd millennium BC

The 2nd millennium BC marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age.Its first half is dominated by the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and Babylonia. The alphabet develops. Indo-Iranian migration onto the Iranian plateau and onto the Indian subcontinent propagates the use of the chariot...

 or earlier, about one thousand years before Georgian branched off from the other two.

Dialects

The Svan language is divided into the following dialects and sub-dialects:

• Upper Bal (about 15,000 speakers): Ushgul, Kala, Ipar, Mulakh, Mestia, Lenzer, Latal.
• Lower Bal (about 12,000 speakers): Becho, Tskhumar, Etser, Par, Chubekh, Lakham.
• Lashkh.
• Lentekh: Kheled, Khopur, Rtskhmelur, Cholur

Consonants

	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Dental	Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....	Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Plosive Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...	pʰ b pʼ ფ ბ პ	tʰ d tʼ თ დ ტ		kʰ ɡ kʼ ქ გ კ	qʰ qʼ ჴ ყ	ʔ ჸ
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...	f v ჶ ვ	s z ს ზ	ʃ ʒ შ ჟ	x ɣ ხ ღ		h ჰ
Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...		tsʰ dz tsʼ ც ძ წ	tʃʰ dʒ tʃʼ ჩ ჯ ჭ
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m მ	n ნ
Liquid Liquid consonant In phonetics, liquids or liquid consonants are a class of consonants consisting of lateral consonants together with rhotics.-Description:...		l, r ლ, რ	j ჲ	w ჳ

Vowels

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...				Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...		Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
	unrounded		rounded		unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	[ i ] ი i	[ iː ] ი̄ ī	[ y ] უ̈ ü	[ yː ] უ̄̈ ű			[ u ] უ u	[ uː ] უ̄ ū
Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...		[ eː ] ჱ ė			[ ə ]¹ ჷ ə
Open-mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...	[ ɛ ] ე e	[ ɛː ] ე̄ ē	[ œ ] ო̈ ö	[ œː ] ო̄̈ ő			[ ɔ ] ო o	[ ɔː ] ო̄ ō
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...	[ æ ] ა̈ ä	[ æː ] ა̄̈ ã			[ a ] ა a	[ aː ] ა̄ ā

Bold letters are standard in all dialects.

1. Freely varies between [ə] and [ɨ]
2. Diacritics not normally written

External links

• A website about Svaneti (in Russian)
• Ethnologue report on Svan
• Svan at TITUS database
• ECLING - Svan (includes audio/video samples).
• Svan alphabet and language at Omniglot