Karata () is an
Andic language of the
Northeast Caucasian language family spoken in southern
Dagestan
Dagestan ( ; ; ), officially the Republic of Dagestan, is a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, along the Caspian Sea. It is located north of the Greater Caucasus, and is a part of the North Caucasian Fede ...
,
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
by 9,549
Karata in 2020. There are ten towns in which the language is traditionally spoken:
Karata,
Anchix,
Tukita,
Rachabalda,
Lower Inxelo,
Mashtada,
Archo,
Chabakovo,
Racitl, and formerly
Siux.
Speakers use
Avar as their literary language.
[ ]
Dialects
The language has two dialects, Karata and Tukita, which slightly differ in phonetics and morphology but are mutually intelligible.
Tukita is sometimes considered a separate language, on the basis of
lexicostatistics
Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a ...
.
There are also four subdialects; ''Anchikh, Archi, Ratsitl'' and ''Rachabalda'', named after their respective villages''.''
Phonology
Consonants
Karata has 45 consonants.
*The
glottal stop
The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic ...
transcribed here is named rather ambiguously a "glottalic
laryngeal" by the source.
Vowels
Karata has 18 vowels.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Karata Language
Northeast Caucasian languages
Andic languages
Endangered Caucasian languages