Easiest north caucasian language (Advice Center) Language Learning Forum

Easiest north caucasian language
Tags: Caucasian languages \| Easiness \| Choosing a Language
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Chung
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Message 9 of 19

14 June 2012 at 12:35am | IP Logged

TixhiiDon wrote:

tanya b wrote:

However there is a British professor named Hewitt, who speaks no
Russian, who apparently is fluent in Abkhaz and has written a dictionary and textbook
for English speakers.

George Hewitt also knows Georgian very well, although whether or not he has mastered it
I couldn't say. Well enough, though, to teach a degree course in Georgian at The
School of Oriental and African Studies at London University.

He seems like an interesting guy, and not a little controversial. He wrote a Georgian
textbook which was highly criticized due to its inaccuracies and supposed prejudicial
statements against Georgians. In the final year of his degree course students study
Abkhazian, having spent only two years on Georgian, not enough to reach even a solid
intermediate level. As far as I am aware, he is married to an Abkhazian woman and
serves as the unofficial British ambassador to Abkhazia. He is highly critical of the
Georgian government and seems to have a rather low opinion of Georgia and its people in
general.

By the way, the degree course can only be taken in combination with another subject
and, in contrast to most UK language degrees,does not include compulsory study abroad
in Georgia. I also wonder how enjoyable it would be to study a language under a
teacher who doesn't love the culture and country associated with that language.
Nevertheless it's good that it exists, and SOAS seems like a wonderful institution.

Your comments piqued my curiosity and man was I in for a surprise after typing his name in Google. The comments about his book on Georgian grammar are illuminating to say the least. He seems like a thoroughly and shockingly unprofessional choice as an author, whatever his nominal linguistic competence is.
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daristani
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Message 10 of 19

24 April 2013 at 4:58pm | IP Logged

I'm resuscitating this old thread because the recent Boston bombings have motivated me to do a bit of reading about some of the Caucasian peoples, and I ran across a website on Professor Hewitt, cited above, that may be of interest to people working on, or just curious about, the languages of the Caucasus:

http://www.georgehewitt.net/

The website has various sections, but includes a very lengthy list of his published articles on various topics, both linguistic and non-linguistic, most of which are available to download in PDF form. The "books" section also includes a PDF of a grammar of Abkhaz that he wrote.

He does seem to be a controversial character, but even so, I wanted to note his website for those interested in the region.
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morinkhuur
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Message 11 of 19

24 April 2013 at 6:06pm | IP Logged

Moses McCormick seems to like his book.

Edited by morinkhuur on 24 April 2013 at 6:10pm
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Expugnator
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Message 12 of 19

24 April 2013 at 6:18pm | IP Logged

I think you should go for the language with most resources, and it seems to be Abkhazian. There is Hewitt's new book and there used to be the site apsni.com where they translated a textbook from Russian with audio. I think you can still find the same book elsewhere. There used to be this site apsny.net which had this book in Russian but it is also gone.
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Po-ru
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Message 13 of 19

25 April 2013 at 5:38am | IP Logged

I am wondering what kinds of materials you are all using to learn these languages? I am very interested in languages of the Caucuses and was wondering what materials you were using to study. I would very much be curious to see how you all went about studying these relatively exotic languages.

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liddytime
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Message 14 of 19

25 April 2013 at 3:09pm | IP Logged

I'm not sure I have ever seen the words "easiest" and "Caucasian Language" together in the same sentence before!
;-)
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Expugnator
Hexaglot
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Message 15 of 19

25 April 2013 at 7:17pm | IP Logged

@Po-ru, you better start over with Georgian, it has more resources, even though they are far from ideal. And you have a team of devoted learners to help you =D

Other than that, Armenian and Ossetic are indo-european, Azeri is turkic and nort caucasian has nothing to do with south caucasian/kartvelian. So, if you are aiming for linguistic uniqueness, you should pick either north caucasian or south caucasian, even if they aren't proved to be related.
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