Ibero-Caucasian languages

Ibero-Caucasian
Caucasian
(defunct)
Ethnicity	Caucasian peoples
Geographic distribution	Caucasus
Native speakers	c. 10 million (2020)
Linguistic classification	Proposed language family
Proto-language	Proto-Caucasian language
Subdivisions	Northwest Caucasian Northeast Caucasian South Caucasian
Language codes
Glottolog	None
The distribution of the Caucasian languages

The term Ibero-Caucasian (or Iberian-Caucasian) was proposed by Georgian linguist Arnold Chikobava for the union of the three language families that are specific to the Caucasus, namely

• Ibero-Caucasian
  • South Caucasian, also called Kartvelian.
  • Northwest Caucasian, also called Abkhazo-Adyghean.
  • Northeast Caucasian, also called Nakh–Dagestanian.

The Ibero-Caucasian phylum would also include three extinct languages: Hattic, connected by some linguists to the Northwest (Circassian) family, and Hurrian and Urartian, connected to the Northeast (Nakh–Dagestanian) family as Alarodian languages.

Family status

The affinities between the three families are disputed. A connection between the Northeast and Northwest families is seen as likely by many linguists; see the article on the North Caucasian languages for details.

On the other hand, there are no known affinities between South Caucasian and the northern languages, which are two unrelated phyla even in Greenberg's deep classification of the world's languages. "Ibero-Caucasian" therefore remains at best a convenient geographical designation.

Family name

The "Iberian" in the family name refers to Caucasian Iberia — a kingdom centered in Eastern Georgia which lasted from the 4th century BC to the 5th century AD, and is not related to the Iberian Peninsula.

See also

• Languages of the Caucasus

References

• Tuite, Kevin (2008). "The Rise and Fall and Revival of the Ibero-Caucasian Hypothesis". Historiographia Linguistica Vol. 35, No. 1-2. pp. 23–82.

Further reading

Main publications

• The Yearbook of the Iberian-Caucasian Linguistics (Tbilisi).
• Revue de Kartvelologie et Caucasologie (Paris).

External links

Main research centers

• TSU Institute of caucasiology
• Chikobava Institute of Linguistics of the Georgian Academy of Sciences (Tbilisi).
• Department of Caucasiology at the University of Jena (Germany).
• Faculty of Philology at the Tbilisi State University (Tbilisi).