Chamalal (also called Camalal or Chamalin) is an Andic language of the Northeast Caucasian language family spoken in southwestern

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 Ca ...

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-ei ...

by approximately 500 ethnic Chamalals. It has three quite distinct dialects, Gadyri, Gakvari, and Gigatl.

History

Chamalal is spoken in southwestern

by indigenous Chamalals since the 8th or 9th century. The ethnic population is approximately 5,000, with around 500 speakers. The language has a 6b (threatened) status.

Geographic distribution

The approximately 500 ethnic speakers live in eight villages in the

Tsumadinsky District Tsumadinsky District (russian: Цумади́нский райо́н, Tsumadínsky rayón; av, Цӏумада мухъ, Ⱬumada muӿ) is an administrativeLaw #16 and municipalLaw #6 district ( raion), one of the forty-one in the Republic of Dage ...

on the left bank of the Andi-Koisu river in the Dagestan Republic and in the Chechnya Republic. The speakers are mostly Muslim, primarily following

Sunni Islam Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disag ...

since the 8th or 9th century.

Official status

There are no countries with Chamalal as an official language.

Dialects/Varieties

Chamalal has three distinct dialects: Gadyri (Gachitl-Kvankhi), Gakvari (Agvali-Richaganik-Tsumada-Urukh), and Gigatl (Hihatl). There are also two more dialects: Kwenkhi, Tsumada.

Derived languages

Gigatl (Hihatl) and Chamalal proper (with Gadyri, Gakvari, Tsumada and Kwenkhi dialects) are considered to be sublanguages.

Writing System

Chamalal is an unwritten language. Avar and Russian are used in school, and Avar is also used for literary purposes.

Bibliography

* Anderson, S. (2005). ''Language,'' ''81''(4), 993-996. * Back Matter. (1996). ''Historische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics,'' ''109''(2). * Blažek, V. (2002). The ‘beech’-argument — State-of-the-Art. ''Historische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics,'' ''115''(2), 190-217. * Friedman, V. (2005). ''The Slavic and East European Journal,'' ''49''(3), 537-539. * Greppin, J. (1996). New Data on the Hurro-Urartian Substratum in Armenian. ''Historische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics,'' ''109''(1), 40-44. * Harris, A. (2009). Exuberant Exponence in Batsbi. ''Natural Language & Linguistic Theory,'' ''27''(2), 267-303. * Haspelmath, M. (1996). ''Language,'' ''72''(1), 126-129. * Kolga, M., Tõnurist, I., Vaba, L., & Viikberg, J. (1993). ''The Red book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire''. * Magomedova, P. T. (2004). Chamalal. ''The Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus Vol. 3, The North East Caucasian Languages, Vol. 1,'' 3-65. * Schulze, W. (2005). Grammars for East Caucasian. ''Anthropological Linguistics,'' ''47''(3), 321-352. * Szczśniak, A. (1963). A Brief Index of Indigenous Peoples and Languages of Asiatic Russia. ''Anthropological Linguistics,'' ''5''(6), 1-29. * Tuite, K., & Schulze, W. (1998). A Case of Taboo-Motivated Lexical Replacement in the Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus. ''Anthropological Linguistics,'' ''40''(3), 363-383. * Voegelin, C., & Voegelin, F. (1966). Index of Languages of the World. ''Anthropological Linguistics,8''(6), I-222.