Bodrov's Prisoners of the Mountains

[Lisa Little]

Dear Ben,

I asked a student who has spent two summers in Daghestan (where the movie
was filmed) on archaelogical digs if she could find out what the languages
were.  Here is her answer:



From: epicure at idiom.com
Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 08:43:14 -0700
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Lisa Little <lclittle at socrates.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: languages

Professor Little,

My "informant" is a good friend who lives in the
capital of Daghestan, Makhachkala.  He told me that the father in the
movie spoke Georgian, the daughter spoke Kumik (a Turkic language) and
that the children in the mountain village were shown doing a Darginian
dance (the ethnicity is Dargin, non-I-E, non-Turkic).  He didn't mention
what the other people in the movie spoke, but I'm sure that there were
other languages thrown in for good measure.

I met people of both Kumik and Dargin descent in Daghestan.  My friend
is Avarian, which is the largest ethnic group in Daghestan, even though
it makes up only about 25% of the population.  Both the Kumik and Dargin
peoples are numerous enough that I met some of them, but they must each
represent less than 25% of the total population of about 2 million
people.  Depending on who's counting and how, Daghestan has 33-35
ethnicities and even more languages, the overwhelming majority of which
are completely mutually unitelligible.  Except for the few Turkish
dialects in Daghestan, none of their languages are related to any major
language family, including Indo-European.  The languages are classified
as Caucasic, being further distinguished into Northern or Western
Caucasic (I think).

I have a linguistic map of the country if anyone's interested, and I
could probably run down some other data if anyone really wants to know.
I don't mind if you post my name and email address somewhere in
connection to this subject.

Kate Hunter-McPeake







>Dear SEELANGers:
>
>I have a question about Bodrov's film _Kavkazskii plennik_ (1996).  I know
>that Bodrov has said that the film is not specifically about Chechnia, but
>about ethnic wars in general, and that he has offered in evidence the fact
>that the word "Chechnia" is not uttered in the film at all.  However, the
>villagers in the film do speak a local (non-Slavic) language.  I was
>wondering if anyone knew if that language had been identified.  I would be
>very grateful for any information about this language!
>
>With thanks,
>
>Ben Rifkin
>
>
>
>        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Benjamin Rifkin, Assoc. Prof. of Slavic Languages, UW-Madison
>Coordinator of Russian-Language Instruction
>1432 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Dr., Madison, WI  53706
>voice:  608/262-1623; fax:  608/265-2814