Chechen Alphabet

Chechen (нохчийн мотт, nokhchiyn mott) has been written in Cyrillic since 1938. Its traditional letter list counts 49 entries, though the 2020 rules spell the older Юь and Яь sequences with Й in ordinary words; its one distinct letter shape is the palochka Ӏ; the rest are the 33 Cyrillic letters from А а to Я я, used alone or combined into digraphs for Chechen's throat consonants, ejectives and front vowels. A digraph is a base letter followed by ь, ъ, х or the stick Ӏ, and it counts and sorts as a letter of its own, right after its base: Аь after А, ГӀ after Г, Кх, Къ and КӀ after К, Хь and ХӀ after Х.

The traditional 49-entry order runs А Аь Б В Г ГӀ Д Е Ё Ж З И Й К Кх Къ КӀ Л М Н О Оь П ПӀ Р С Т ТӀ У Уь Ф Х Хь ХӀ Ц ЦӀ Ч ЧӀ Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Юь Я Яь, with the palochka Ӏ last. Under the 2020 rules, ordinary Chechen words use Йуь and Йаь instead of the older Юь and Яь spellings. Letters such as Ё, Щ and Ф turn up mostly in words borrowed from Russian.

Before Cyrillic, Chechen was written in Arabic script, then in a Latin alphabet from 1925 to 1938. A new Latin alphabet was introduced in the 1990s but did not last, and Cyrillic is the standard today in schools, books, newspapers and on signs in Chechnya.

What the Chechen letters Ӏ, ГӀ, Хь, Кх and Аь write

Chechen is famous for its throat consonants, and the digraphs are how Cyrillic writes them. The palochka on its own, Ӏ, is a voiced pharyngeal sound, the ʿayn of Arabic, as in Ӏа (winter). Хь хь is its voiceless partner, the breathy ḥ of Arabic ḥāʾ, as in хьо (you), while ХӀ хӀ is a plain h, as in хӀума (thing). ГӀ гӀ is a voiced sound at the back of the mouth, close to a French r, as in гӀала (town). Readers of Avar should note that the same digraphs stand for different sounds there.

Кх кх is a q, made further back than k, as in кхоъ (three), and Къ къ is the same sound popped out as an ejective, as in къам (nation). КӀ, ПӀ, ТӀ, ЦӀ and ЧӀ are ejectives too: k, p, t, ts and ch said with a sharp pop from a closed throat, as in кӀант (boy), пӀелг (finger), цӀа (house) and чӀара (fish). A hard sign at the end of a word, as in цхьаъ (one) and шиъ (two), marks a glottal stop.

The vowel digraphs give Chechen its front vowels: Аь аь is the a of English cat, as in аьрзу (eagle); Оь оь and Уь уь are close to German ö and ü, as in Нохчийчоь (Chechnya); under the 2020 rules, ordinary words write the y + front-vowel sequences as Йуь and Йаь, as in йуьрт (village); the older spellings are Юь and Яь. Leave out a single Ӏ or ь and you often write a different word.

How to type the palochka Ӏ and the Chechen letters

The palochka (Russian палочка, little stick) is U+04C0 Ӏ; its small form ӏ is U+04CF. Chechen print normally uses the tall Ӏ inside small words too (кӀант), so if you need only one, copy Ӏ from this page. The same character serves Ingush, Avar, Dargwa, Lezghian, Kabardian, Adyghe and other Caucasian languages.

A Russian keyboard has every other Chechen letter, because the digraphs are typed as two ordinary keys: А then ь for Аь, Х then ь for Хь, К then х for Кх. It has no palochka key, so people chatting in Chechen famously type the digit 1 instead (к1ант), or a Latin I. It looks close on screen, but search, sorting and spell-check treat it as a different character, and a dictionary search with 1 or I will not find the word written with Ӏ.

Windows: in Microsoft Word type 04C0 and press Alt + X; elsewhere copy it from here. Mac: add the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 04C0. Linux: Ctrl + Shift + U, then 4c0 and Enter. HTML: Ӏ for Ӏ and ӏ for ӏ. On a phone, add a Chechen keyboard if your keyboard app offers one, or save Ӏ as a text shortcut.

Where Chechen is spoken

Chechen is the language of the Chechens, who call themselves нохчий (nokhchiy), and an official language of the Chechen Republic in Russia's North Caucasus, alongside Russian. CLDR estimates about 930,000 speakers; Russian census figures are higher. It is heard in the capital Grozny, Соьлжа-ГӀала in Chechen, in the lowland towns and in the mountain villages to the south, and in Chechen communities in neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia.

Chechen communities also live abroad: in Kazakhstan, a legacy of the 1944 deportation of the whole Chechen people to Central Asia, in Turkey and Jordan, in Western Europe, and in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, where the Kists speak a Chechen dialect. Nearly all Chechen speakers in Russia also speak Russian, and prices are written in rubles, ₽.

Chechen belongs to the Nakh branch of the Northeast Caucasian languages. Its closest relative is Ingush, close enough that many speakers can follow each other, largely through passive bilingualism; more distant cousins are Avar, Dargwa and Lezghian in Dagestan. All of them have collections of their own, as do Russian and the country page Russia 🇷🇺.