Kaitag (self des. ''Хайдакьан кув'' ; oth. des. ''Kaidak'', ''Karakaitak'', ''Karkaidak'', ''Qaidaqlan'') is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken in

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 ...

. It has sometimes been considered a divergent dialect of Dargwa due to it being part of the Dargin dialect continuum. The ''Routledge Ethnographic Handbook'' (2017) divided Kaitag into two dialects: northern (Magalis-Kaitak) and southern (Karakaitak). Recent results of the ''Association of the Russian Sociolinguists'' (2021) further developed it into three dialects: Lower Kaitag, Upper Kaitag and Shari.

Dialects

The languages consists of eight varieties, forming three dialects. Each of the Upper varieties corresponds to a historical province of the region. * Upper Kaitag – Хъар Хайдакь (south-west). ** Shurkkant – ''"The Cliff Dwellers"'' – Шурккант. **Qattagan – ''"The Gorge Dwellers"'' – Къаттагне. **Irchamul – ''"The Land of Nine"'' – Ирчӏамул. *Lower Kaitag – Ххьар Хайдакь. **Barshamai – Баршамаӏъган. **Karatsan – Гъаӏрцӏнила. **Jibahni – Чӏивгьаӏн. **Sanchi – Сунклан. *Shari – Шаӏръи.

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

Consonants form by series of voiced, aspirated, fortis, ejective, and labialized variants. The palatal fricative �might be the ''voiceless post-palatal fricative'', which can be more precisely transcribed as �̠or ̟

Alphabet

The Kaitag language is usually written in the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking c ...

. The letters of the alphabet are (with their pronunciation given below in

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners A ...

transcription):

Lexicon

Most of Kaitag's vocabulary stems from proto- Northeast-Caucasian roots. Like with other languages of

, there is a considerable number of Arabic, Iranian, Turkic and recently Russian loanwords.

References

Northeast Caucasian languages {{NEC-lang-stub