Ingush people

Ingush
ГIалгIай (Ğalğay)

Total population
(~700,000)
Regions with significant populations
Russia	444,833[1]
Ingushetia	385,537
Chechnya	1,296
North Ossetia-Alania	28,336
Kazakhstan	16,893
Belgium	8,000[2]
Norway	3,000[3]
Iraq	2,000
Ukraine	455
Languages
Ingush
Religion
Predominantly Sunni Islam (Shafii Madhhab)
Related ethnic groups
Chechens, Bats, Kists

The Ingush (/ˈɪnɡʊʃ/, Ingush: ГIалгIай, Ğalğay, pronounced [ˈʁəlʁɑj]) are a Caucasian native ethnic group of the North Caucasus, mostly inhabiting the Russian republic of Ingushetia. The Ingush are predominantly Sunni Muslims and speak the Ingush language. Despite popular misconceptions, Ingush is not mutually intelligible with Chechen, though they are closely related.^[4] The Ingush and Chechen peoples are collectively known as the Vainakh.^[5]

History

Caucas is the legendary ancestor of all modern Nakh peoples (although the origin of the Batsbi is still disputed), including the Ingush and Chechens, who are closely related linguistically and genetically. The Georgian name is Ghlivi / Ghlighvi.. Ancient author (Strabo) spoke about the Gargars, American cartographer J.H.Colton labeled the people as Gelians.

The Ingush came under Russian rule in 1810, but during World War II they were falsely accused of collaborating with the Nazis and the entire population was deported to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. They were rehabilitated in the 1950s, after the death of Joseph Stalin, and allowed to return home in 1957, though by that time western Ingush lands had been ceded to North Ossetia.

Culture

The Ingush possess a varied culture of traditions, legends, epics, tales, songs, proverbs, and sayings. Music, songs and dance are particularly highly regarded. Popular musical instruments include the dachick-panderr (a kind of balalaika), kekhat ponder (accordion, generally played by girls), mirz ponder (a three-stringed violin), zurna (a type of oboe), tambourine, and drums.

Religion

The Ingush are predominantly Sunni Muslims of the Shāfi‘ī Madh'hab, although a Sufi minority exists.^[6]

Ingush genetics

"The Caucasus populations exhibit, on average, less variability than other populations for the eight Alu insertion poly-morphisms analysed here. The average heterozygosity is less than that for any other region of the world, with the exception of Sahul. Within the Caucasus, Ingushians have much lower levels of variability than any of the other populations. The Ingushians also showed unusual patterns of mtDNA variation when compared with other Caucasus populations (Nasidze and Stoneking, submitted), which indicates that some feature of the Ingushian population history, or of this particular sample of Ingushians, must be responsible for their different patterns of genetic variation at both mtDNA and the Alu insertion loci."^[7][8]

According to one test by Nasidze in 2003 (analyzed further in 2004), the Y-chromosome structure of the Ingush greatly resembled that of neighboring Caucasian populations (especially Chechens, their linguistic and cultural brethren).^[9][10]

There has been only one notable study on the Ingush Y chromosome. These following statistics should not be regarded as final, as Nasidze's test had a notably low sample data for the Ingush. However, they do give an idea of the main haplogroups of the Ingush.

• J2 – 89% of Ingush have the highest reported frequency of J2 which is associated with the Fertile Crescent.^[11]
• F* – (11% of Ingush)^[10] This haplogroup was called "F*" by Nasidze. It may have actually been any haplogroup under F that was not under G, I, J2, or K; however, it is probably consists of haplotypes that are either under J1 (typical of the region, with very high frequencies in parts of Dagestan, as well as Arabia, albeit in a different subclade) or F3.
• G – (27% of Ingush)^[10] Typical of the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Caucasus. The highest values were found among Georgians, Circassians and Ossetes. There was a noticeable difference in G between Ingush and Chechens (in J2 and F*, Ingush and Chechens have similar levels), possibly attributable to low samples that were all from the same town.

In the mtDNA, the Ingush formed a more clearly distinct population, with distance from other populations. The closest in an analysis by Nasidze were Chechens, Kabardins and Adyghe (Circassians), but these were all much closer to other populations than they were to the Ingush.^[10]

See also

• Vainakhia

References

1. "Russian Census 2010: Population by ethnicity". Retrieved 2013-04-16.
2. "Ждут ли Юнус-Бека Евкурова в Европе и коротко об организаторах встречи в Бельгии". Habar.Org. 1999-02-22. Retrieved 2013-04-16.
3. "ЧЕЧЕНЦЫ и ИНГУШИ! Почему вы не выходите на улицы Норвегии?". Diaspora.no. 2011-01-24. Retrieved 2013-04-16.
4. Nichols, J. and Vagapov, A. D. (2004). Chechen-English and English-Chechen Dictionary, p. 4. RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN 0-415-31594-8.
5. Arutiunov, Sergei. (1996). "Ethnicity and Conflict in the Caucasus". Slavic Research Center
6. Stefano Allievi; Jørgen S. Nielsen (2003). Muslim networks and transnational communities in and across Europe. 1.
7. Ivane Nasidze; et al. (2001). "Alu insertion polymorphisms and the genetic structure of human populations from the Caucasus". European Journal of Human Genetics. 9 (4): 267–272. doi:10.1038/sj.ejhg.5200615. PMID 11313770.
8. "Alu insertion polymorphisms and the genetic structure of human populations from the Caucasus" (PDF).
9. Nasidze I, Sarkisian T, Kerimov A, Stoneking M (March 2003). "Testing hypotheses of language replacement in the Caucasus: evidence from the Y-chromosome" (PDF). Human Genetics. 112 (3): 255–61. doi:10.1007/s00439-002-0874-4. PMID 12596050.
10. I. Nasidze, E. Y. S. Ling, D. Quinque et al., "Mitochondrial DNA and Y-Chromosome Variation in the Caucasus", Annals of Human Genetics (2004) 68, 205–221. http://www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/pdf/Caucasus_big_paper.pdf
11. Oleg Balanovsky, Khadizhat Dibirova, Anna Dybo, Oleg Mudrak, Svetlana Frolova, Elvira Pocheshkhova, Marc Haber, Daniel Platt, Theodore Schurr, Wolfgang Haak, Marina Kuznetsova, Magomed Radzhabov, Olga Balaganskaya, Alexey Romanov, Tatiana Zakharova, David F. Soria Hernanz, Pierre Zalloua, Sergey Koshel, Merritt Ruhlen, Colin Renfrew, R. Spencer Wells, Chris Tyler-Smith, Elena Balanovska, and The Genographic Consortium Parallel Evolution of Genes and Languages in the Caucasus Region Mol. Biol. Evol. 2011 : msr126v1-msr126.

External links

• News and History of Ingushetia
• The Ingush people