The Avâr Language
About the Author
Sir Cyril C. Graham, of Kirkstall, was born in 1834. In 1874 he married Louisa Frederica, daughter of the late Rev. Lord Charles Hervey, D.D. Early in 1857 he made a long journey into the higher and less known regions of the Nile, and was rewarded by the discovery of several inscriptions of value.
Next he travelled very carefully over the greater part of Palestine and much of Syria. In August 1857 he made explorations of great interest in the desert east of the Hauran and in the land of Bashan, where he discovered very curious inscriptions. Respecting this last expedition he communicated valuable papers to the Royal Geographical and Asiatic Societies, of both of which he was a member. For the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature he wrote a further paper on “Additional Inscriptions from the Hauran and the Eastern Desert of Syria,” which was edited with a preface and notes by John Hogg, London, 1859.
In 1860–61 he was attached to Lord Dufferin's Mission in Syria (having previously travelled with him in that country in the autumn of 1859) as private secretary. In respect of his services in this capacity Lord Dufferin expressed himself thus: “At the expiration of about nine months our task was successfully terminated; the Constitution then drawn up has ever since rendered the Lebanon the best governed territory in the Turkish possessions. To these results he [Sir Cyril] powerfully contributed. His abilities were certainly extraordinary. He had a peculiar talent for languages, and a most remarkable memory. As for his engaging qualities, they were innumerable.”
In 1870–71 he went on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company on a special mission to Canada and Hudson's Bay Territory to negotiate arrangements between the Company and the Government of the Dominion.
In 1873 Sir Cyril travelled in Russia, from Archangel to Astrakhan, and from the White Sea to the borders of the Caspian, passing homewards through Daghistan and Georgia. Here, in the Caucasus, his attention was turned to the peculiarities of the Lesghian or Avar language, on which he communicated a paper of great value to the Royal Asiatic Society in 1881.
In 1875–77 he was Lieutenant-Governor of Grenada in the West Indies, where he succeeded in bringing about an important change in the Constitution, which had previously been found unsatisfactory in its working.
He was a member of the Geological Society. He was an accomplished linguist and philologist, being a master of Arabic and Turkish, well versed in Egyptology, speaking French, German, and Italian like a native, and knowing much of several other tongues.
Of the Royal Geographical Society he was Foreign Secretary from 1866 to 1871. He succeeded his brother, Sir Lumley Graham, in the Baronetcy on 25 October 1890. He died on 9 May 1895.
[For the above particulars the Council was indebted to Mr. Dudley Hervey, C.M.G., brother-in-law of Sir C. C. Graham.]
Introduction
In the year 1873, having traversed Russia from Archangel to Astrakhan, from the White Sea to the borders of the Caspian, my friend and I determined to pass homewards — through Daghestan and Georgia, and thence by the Black Sea to Odessa.
We landed at Petrovsk, where Prince Melikoff, Commanders-in-Chief of the army of the Caucasus, was at that time staying. His Excellency gave us letters which enabled us to pass through the whole of Daghistan, and, thanks to this attention and hospitality which were shown to us by the commandants and officers of the various fortresses and stations through which we passed, our journey was accomplished without impediment of any kind.
As I am not writing a paper for the Royal Geographical Society, I give no details of our journey, but in the name of my companion, Mr. J. F. Campbell (of Islay), and my own, I am glad to have the present opportunity to thank all those gentlemen, military and civilian, who made difficulties easy and everything pleasant.
I now come to the point with which the Royal Asiatic Society is concerned, the Publication of the Treatise which follows this Introduction.
Interpreters and Languages
To all the important posts in the Caucasus are attached interpreters of high education. Besides, of course, knowledge of the Russian, they must be possessed of several other languages, primarily of the Tatar or Turkumân, — an expression which I use in contrast to the ornate Othmanli, — Persian, and two or three more which are current in their districts. I may here remind the reader that so diverse are the tribes of the Caucasus in origin and in speech, that the traveller may in one day pass through three or four communities who—but for the jargon of a rude interpreter, who is in fact the ordinary tajar or carrier, a retailer of little luxuries and of gossip—would be unintelligible to one another.
The Babel of Languages
There may be many theories as to the accidents out of which this Babel came to pass, but the simplest explanation seems to be that century after century, races and vanquished peoples have been driven by those persistent revolutions which in Central Asia have occurred on a scale without parallel in the history of other parts of the earth, to seek refuge in places inaccessible to their persecutors, and in which once lodged they remained and multiplied.
The contests, too, which raged amongst the great nations in the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates and on the lower shores of the Caspian, no doubt contributed immigrants to the mountains whose descendants now interest and puzzle us.
The phenomenon, however, is before us, that in the whole range of the Caucasus such a variety of races of independent extraction and diversity of speech are to be found, that the Caucasus may well be called a museum of ethnology and philology.
At Gunib
At Gunib, once an almost impregnable, now an impregnable fortress, in which Shamyl, having been driven from mountain top to mountain top, kept the whole force of the Russians at bay, until after months of pressure that last stronghold had to be surrendered, I found the most intelligent of the interpreters whom it was my good fortune to meet in the course of my expedition. He, like most of the highest class of those gentlemen, came from Azerbaijan. European languages are known to very few of the officers serving in those parts, so most of my conversation was carried on in the Tatar language through the medium of a Median Terjiman. He first called attention to the peculiarities of the Lesghian or Avar language.
The Avar Language
He said he had not yet been able to master it on account of the interminable intricacies of its construction, and the difficulties in its pronunciation. He, however, was able to quote to me the numerals, which, loaded as they are with "clicks," excited my curiosity. During the next few days my ride took me through the Avar-speaking country, and I lost no opportunity, especially when we halted for the night, to take from the mouth of the most clear-spoken and intelligent men I could find, such leading words as usually enable us to come to some conclusion as to the basis of a language. These memoranda I have by me, and meagre as they are they have greatly helped me in the punctuation of the words contained in the vocabulary and the grammar.
But my journey was necessarily too rapid for me to effect more, and I consoled myself with the reflection that at Tiflis I should be sure to find some one who had given attention to the curious languages of the Caucasus.
Adolphe Bergé and the Manuscript
If I were to say that my hopes were not disappointed, I should be expressing in the coldest terms the delight with which I welcomed the MS. which was unreservedly placed in my hands by one of the most eminent of Russian philologists.
Adolphe Bergé, whose official duties called him to the higher regions of the Caucasus, and who is known to all who devote themselves to Oriental studies, was then, as I believe he still is, in high authority, presiding over the Archives of Georgia. His leisure hours were devoted to the study of the people and the languages in the midst of which he was placed, and I understood him to say that the compilation of the materials from which I am now drawing so largely, amused and occupied seven years of his life. In his labours he was greatly assisted by the Sheikh Latinalav Ben Hitanav Mohdémmad, Shamyl's tutor and adviser. The MS. thus presented to me owes its origin therefore to two hands. It is written by the one in Avar, by the other in Russian, and both texts are so clear that it is impossible to give too much praise to the manipulators without whose joint care it would have been all but impossible for any editor to deal with.
The Editor's Work
I am merely in the position of that editor. My business—a laborious one no doubt—has been to effect the translation of the Russian into the English, to re-arrange the vocabulary into English-Avar, so that the former should come first alphabetically, and to throw certain lights upon the Grammar, which is unfortunately given without note or comment whatsoever.
I had pretty well completed my labours before the valuable treatise by the late Professor Schiefner came to my hands. He, like myself, was indebted for his materials chiefly to Adolphe Bergé. His treatise is arranged in a different form from mine, the Avar being printed, not in its own character, but solely with the Latin equivalents first presented to view.
I think that in rendering an obscure or little known language, by far the most convenient form of giving a vocabulary is to place the European words alphabetically foremost, so that the student who wishes to make a comparison between a variety of dialects can at once turn to the words, whether the names of objects or subjects, which most excite his curiosity.
Comparison with Schiefner
After a careful comparison of that which Professor Schiefner has left us with the MS. now before me, I am surprised at the number of cases in which notable differences occur between the two works. I can only account for this on the supposition that, limited as is the number of people—about 160,000—by whom the Avar is spoken, words belonging to neighbouring tribes have crept into one MS. or the other; or, which is perhaps more probable, that as every hill and valley has some difference of speech, the contributions which have reached us may represent more than one dialect.
But, perhaps, that which most surprises is the paucity of words taken from absolutely foreign tongues, such as the Persian, the Georgian and the Tatar with which the Avars cannot fail to be brought in contact. The few Arabic words of course have found their way into the language through the Kuran.
Who are the Avars?
We now come to the question, who are these Avar? By the Persians and the Russians they are called Lesghians, but themselves repudiate this name. Their legends are their history, properly so called, they have none. Their poems and stories only tell us of quarrels—for which, by the bye, they have three words—and raids on the part of the Russians and Persians. That they should be offshoots of that great Avar confederation which swept over Western Asia and Eastern Europe, penetrating as far as Presburg, in the sixth and seventh centuries, as some people think, is very doubtful. That their language differs in its vocabulary from anything else far and near is scarcely less incontestable than that its grammatical formation comes within that wide field of linguistic research to which it has been found convenient to apply the term "Turanian."
Their physiognomy, I am bound to say, led me to take them for men of Aryan descent, but this would not, of course, be incompatible with the fact that their speech might have been borrowed from another source.
The Click Sound
When I come to the alphabet and grammar I shall say a few more words with regard to a certain peculiarity which at once strikes the stranger; the extraordinary "click" found in the beginning, the middle and the end of words, and resembling nothing in our continent, but reminding us of the terminal sound so exuberant in the Aztek language.
Whence it came—for as far as I can gather it is not to be found amongst the neighbouring tribes—I cannot imagine. Except to those who have heard it uttered, it is impossible to explain it. It differs entirely from the many South African "clicks," and used as it is by a race who are in possession of a highly developed language, offers itself as a phenomenon which requires careful investigation.
With these prefatory notes I place my MS. in the hands of our printers, in the hope that when it is published, skeletons as are the vocabulary and the grammar, they may one day be developed and given life by some of those enquiring men in the Imperial Russian service who may happen to be employed in Daghestan and the Caucasus.
Source
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1881
Art. XI — The Avâr Language by Cyril Graham