Lezgic
The Lezgic languages are one of seven branches of the Northeast Caucasian language family. Lezgian are literary languages aside from being extant (currently spoken).
Classification
* Peripheral: Archi – 970 speakers
* SamurTabasaran people in the southern part of the
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
n Republic of
Dagestan
Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, links=yes), officially the Republic of Dagestan (russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respúblika Dagestán, links=no), is a republic of Russia situated in the North ...
. There are two main dialects: North (Khanag) and South Tabasaran. It has a literary language based on the Southern dialect, one of the official languages of Dagestan.
Tabasaran is an ergative language. The verb system is relatively simple; verbs agree with the subject in number, person and (in North Tabasaran) class. North Tabasaran has two
noun class
In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some ...
es (also dubbed with the term "
grammatical gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
whistled
Whistling without the use of an artificial whistle is achieved by creating a small opening with one's lips, usually after applying moisture (licking one's lips or placing water upon them) and then blowing or sucking air through the space. The ...
.
Vowels
Vowel sounds of Tabasaran are
, y, ɛ, æ, ɑ, u
The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline ...
Writing system
Tabasaran is written using Cyrillic since 1938 (from 1928 to 1938 the Latin alphabet was used as a base for the Tabasaran writing system).
Note: The letters indicated in orange are encountered only in loanwords from Russian.
Grammar
It is highly probable that Tabasaran is an active language of the fluid-S type.
Tabasaran was listed in the ''
Guinness Book of World Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
'' as having the largest
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component
* Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books
* Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
system in the world, with 48. Hjelmslev (1935) claimed that Tabasaran had the 'empirical maximum' number of cases, with 52 (though 2 occur only on adjectives). However, such claims are based on a sloppy analysis of 'case', and other languages such as Tsez would have even larger counts under such definitions. Comrie & Polinsky
(1998) analyze the system as having 14 case morphemes (counting the absolutive with no suffix) in southern dialects (including the standard language) and 15 in northern dialects.. See also
These include 4 core/argument cases (absolutive, ergative, genitive -n and dative -z). The absolutive is the citation form. The ergative, which may be irregular but typically ends in -i, functions as the stem for all other cases.
There are also 7 or 8 locative case suffixes: -ɂ 'in', -xy 'at', -h 'near / in front' (neutralized with 'at' in the south), -ɂin 'on' (horizontal), -k 'on' (vertical), -kk 'under', -q 'behind' and 'among'. The locative cases may take an additional suffix, allative -na or ablative -an, for 21 or 24 combinations. All of these, as well as the dative, can take a further suffix -di to mark the location as less specific, for 47 (southern) to 53 (northern) combinations of case suffixes.
Samples
''Uwu aldakurawu.'' "Уву алдакураву." — "You are falling."
''Uzuz uwu kkunduzuz.'' "Узуз уву ккундузуз." — "I love you."
''Uwu fudžuwa?'' "Уву фужува?" — "Who are you?"
''Fici wuna?'' "Фици вуна?" — "How are you?"
''Zakur ʕürza.'' "Закур гъюрза." — "I'll come tomorrow."
''Uzu kana qheza.'' "Узу кана хъэза." — "I'll be back."