Chuvash people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chuvash
(Чăвашсем)
Total population

1,637,200 (2002)
Regions with significant populations
Chuvashia,Russia:
  889,200 (2002)
Languages
Russian, Chuvash
Religions
Russian Orthodoxy
Related ethnic groups
Altaic
Turkic
Bulgars

The Chuvash (Chuvash Чǎвашсем; Russian: Чуваши; Tatar: Çuaşlar, Чуашлар) are a Turkic people usually associated with Chuvashia. This name is usually considered to be related to Turkish yavaş "gentle, mild, docile",[1], although Gerard Clauson believed it was "a corruption of Tavğaç and there is good authority in the Chuvash language for all the sound changes involved."[2] According to the Soviet census of 1989, the Chuvash population numbered 1,843,300 ; 907,000 of these lived in Chuvashia. The remainder lived in Tatarstan's Aqsubay, Bua, Nurlat, Täteş, Çirmeşän, Çüpräle rayons, Bashkortostan, Samara, Ulyanovsk, Tyumen, Kemerovo, Orenburg, Moscow oblasts of Russia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, as well as Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

They are divided into three groups: Hill Chuvashs (вирьял, тури; viryal, turi) in northern and northeastern Chuvashia; Meadow Chuvashs (анат енчи; anat yenči) in central and southwestern Chuvashia; and Downer Chuvashs (анатри; anatri) in southern Chuvashia and outside of Chuvashia.

They speak the Chuvash language and are predominantly Orthodox Christian, with some pre-Christian traditions. In addition to the Chuvash language, many Chuvash people also use the Russian and Tatar languages.

There are rival schools of thought on the origin of the Chuvash. One is that they originated from a mixing between the Suar or Sabir tribe of the Volga Bolgars with local Mari tribes. Another is that the Chuvash are remainders of pre-Bolgar (Hunnic) population of Volga Bulgaria, partly merged with Scythians, Bolgars and Mari.

Some scholars believe a part of the Chuvash people converted to Islam in Middle Ages and merged with the Tatars.

In the 15th-16th centuries, Chuvash lands were incorporated into the Khanate of Kazan, and then in 1550 annexed by Russia. From 1708 to 1920, the Chuvash lands were part of the Kazan Governorate.

Chuvashs are the third largest ethnic group in the city of Kazan (1.2 percent).

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock (ed.). "Chuvash", Webster's Third International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2002, p. 405.
  2. ^ Clauson, Gerard. Studies in Turkic and Mongolic Linguistics. Routledge, 2002, p. 38.

[edit] Further reading

  • Durmuş, Arik (April 2007). "Islam among the Chuvashes and its Role in the Change of Chuvash Ethnicity". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 27 (1): 37-54.