Chechen is spoken primarily in the North Caucasus region of Russia. It is part of the Northeast Caucasian language family. It tends to have unique linguistic features, but there are several languages that bear notable similarities—whether through geographic proximity, structural traits, or cultural-historical interactions. According to the eLinguistics.net analysis using specific software modules to assess linguistic relationships, the five languages most similar to Chechen are Avar, Kyrgyz, Pashto, Greek, and Kazakh.
- Avar (20.2)
Avar is perhaps the closest linguistic relative of Chechen. Both belong to the Northeast Caucasian language family. Avar is primarily spoken in Dagestan, a close neighbor of Chechnya. As a result, they have some lexical and cultural overlap. - Kyrgyz (17.0)
While linguistically far distant, Kyrgyz and Chechen share traits due to historical interactions between Turkic and Caucasian peoples. Kyrgyz is primarily spoken in Kyrgyzstan. In fact, both languages feature agglutinative grammar and vowel harmony. - Pashto (15.9)
Pashto is one of the official languages of Afghanistan. It is an Indo-European language. There is little direct lexical overlap. However, loanwords from Arabic or Persian (e.g., religious or cultural terms) might have similar roots, especially in modern vocabulary. - Greek (14.3)
Though from entirely different families, Greek and Chechen both make heavy use of cases. While there is no evidence of any direct, deep influence of Greek on Chechen, both languages has absorbed vocabulary influence from Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. - Kazakh (14.2)
Kazakh is another Turkic language on this list. It is primarily spoken in Kazakhstan. Both Chechens and Kazakhs spent decades under Soviet rule. Both have influence from Arabic/Persian (religious) and Russian (modern technical and administrative vocabulary).
(to be considered for the list, the language must be spoken by at least one million people)