Lezgian Languages
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The Lezgic languages (also Lezgian or Lezghian) are one of seven branches of the Northeast Caucasian language family. Lezgin and Tabasaran are
literary language Literary language is the Register (sociolinguistics), register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic writing, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. ...
s. Khinalug may either be Lezgic or an independent branch of the Northeast Caucasian family.


Classification

* Peripheral: Archi – 1,700 speakers7. НАСЕЛЕНИЕ НАИБОЛЕЕ МНОГОЧИСЛЕННЫХ НАЦИОНАЛЬНОСТЕЙ ПО РОДНОМУ ЯЗЫКУ
/ref> * SamurLanguages in the Caucasus, by Wolfgang Schulze (2009)
 (Nuclear Lezgic) ** Eastern Samur *** Udi – 6,600 speakers *** Lezgin–Aghul–Tabasaran **** Lezgin – 410,000 speakers **** Aghul – 33,200 speakers **** Tabasaran – 143,600 speakers ** Southern Samur *** Kryts – 5,000 speakers *** Budukh – 200 speakers *** Jek – 1,500 speakers ** Western Samur *** Rutul – 36,400 speakers *** Tsakhur – 22,300 speakers


The voicing of ejective consonants

The Lezgic languages are relevant to the
glottalic theory The glottalic theory is that Proto-Indo-European had ejective or otherwise non- pulmonic stops, , instead of the plain voiced ones, as hypothesized by the usual Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions. A forerunner of the theory was ...
of Indo-European, because several have undergone the voicing of ejectives that have been postulated but widely derided as improbable in that family. The correspondences have not been well worked out (Rutul is inconsistent in the examples), but a few examples are: *Non-Lezgic: Avar ; Lezgic: Rutul , Tsakhur 'name' *Non-Lezgic: Archi , Lak ; Lezgic: Rutul , Tabassaran , Aɡul 'beard' *Non-Lezgic: Avar ; Lezgic: Tabassaran 'moon' A similar change has taken place in non-initial position in the Nakh languages.Paul Fallon, 2002. ''The synchronic and diachronic phonology of ejectives'', p 245.


See also

*
Languages of the Caucasus The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Linguistic comparison allows t ...
*
Northeast Caucasian languages The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or Vainakh-Daghestani, or sometimes Caspian languages (from the Caspian Sea, in contrast to ''Pontic languages'' for the Northwest Caucasian languages), is a langu ...


References


External links


Lezgic basic lexica at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{Authority control Lezgian languages Northeast Caucasian languages Languages of Azerbaijan Languages of Russia tr:Lezgice