Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Chuvash
SOURCE
The Chuvash Nation Congress
Chuvash
Language Profile
TOTAL SPEAKERS
Native speakers - 1,042,989 (2010 census).
USAGE BY COUNTRY (OFFICIAL LANGUAGE)
RussiaBACKGROUND
Chuvash is the most distinctive of the Turkic languages and cannot be understood by speakers of other Turkic tongues. Chuvash is classified, alongside the extinct language Bulgar, as the only remaining member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family. Since the surviving literary records for the non-Chuvash members of Oghuric are scant, the exact position of Chuvash within the Oghuric family cannot be determined.The Oghuric branch is distinguished from the rest of the Turkic family (the Common Turkic languages) by two sound changes: r corresponding to Common Turkic z, and l corresponding to Common Turkic ş.Formerly, scholars considered Chuvash not properly a Turkic language at all but, rather, a Turkicised Finno-Ugric (Uralic) language.