Ingush language
Ingush is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by about 350,000 people, mainly in Ingushetia, a region in Russia, with communities in Chechnya and North Ossetia. There are also speakers in countries such as Turkey, Kazakhstan, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Belgium, and Norway. The Ingush call themselves Ingush and many people also know Chechen, with bilingual use common.
Ingush is in the Nakh branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family and is closely related to Chechen. There are no widely recognized dialects, though Galanchoz is sometimes viewed as a transitional variety between Ingush and Chechen. It is spoken by people who often mix it with Chechen in daily life.
The language uses the Cyrillic alphabet today. In the past, it has used Georgian, Arabic, and Latin scripts. Ingush became a written language in the 20th century, moving from Arabic to Latin and then to Cyrillic. In Russia, Ingush is an official language in Ingushetia alongside Russian.
Ingush is considered vulnerable by UNESCO, meaning it is at risk but still widely used in families, schools, and local communities.
Grammar and numbers: Ingush has a rich system of noun cases and uses a counting system based on twenty for larger numbers. Its sentence structure and morphology are quite different from English, reflecting its unique linguistic heritage.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 11:36 (CET).