Language
Although there is sparse knowledge about the Avar language, if there was some original Avar (Ur-Avar) language, scholars generally posit that the extinct language of the Eurasian Avars belonged to the Oghuric group, showing both strong similarities and discernable differences to Common Turkic. Today, Chuvash is thought to represent the last remaining branch of Oghuric. How well modern Chuvash represents archaic Oghuric remains speculative. Chuvash itself is not intelligible by speakers of Common Turkic, despite having undergone significant degrees of Turkicization in recent centuries.
Whatever the 'original' languages of the various Avar groups, Slavic was adopted as the dominant language of the Avar khaganate.
Read more about this topic: Eurasian Avars
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the Devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“There’s a cool web of language winds us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too much fear:
We grow sea-green at last and coldly die
In brininess and volubility.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
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—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)