Similarities Between Arabic and Chechen

Chechen is a Northeast Caucasian language native to the North Caucasus, specifically Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan. It is primarily spoken in the Chechen Republic where, along with the Republic of Dagestan, it holds official status. Despite belonging to different language family groups, Chechen and Arabic share a lot of common words. While the majority of the Chechen vocabulary comes from the Nakh branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family, it contains many words derived from Arabic, aside from the terms which are related to religion.

In this video, we compare some of the common words between Chechen (нохчийн мотт) and Arabic (العربية) with Elmira, a Chechen speaker from Chechnya, and Diana, an Arabic speaker from Syria.

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Arabic is a Central Semitic language and has official/national status Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, SADR, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania (Zanzibar), Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Chechens, historically also known as Kisti and Durdzuks, who refer to themselves as Nokhchiy are among the Nakh people native to the North Caucasus. They have a very interesting history going back to antiquity. Despite being predominantly Muslim today, even until the 19th century Chechens' own religion was still widely practiced in the region. Over the course of centuries, the Chechen people have interacted with numerous different groups, which has impacted their culture and language. Languages which are closely related to Chechen include Ingush (spoken in Ingushetia), and Batsbi (spoken in Georgia), both of which are Nakh languages. They are, to a lesser extent, related to the Nakho-Dagestanian family, including the languages of the Avars, Dargins, Lezghins, and Laks.

Despite having around 2 million native speakers, Chechen has numerous different dialects, such as Ehki, Chantish, Chebarloish, Malkhish, Nokhchmakhkakhoish, Orstkhoish, Sharoish, Shuotoish, Terloish, Itum-Qalish and Himoish. Many different scripts have been used in order to write the Chechen language, with the Arabic script becoming popular as the majority of the Chechens became Muslim. The Arabic script continued to be used into the 20th century until the Latin script was introduced. The Cyrillic script was adopted in 1938 and is still being used today.