Aghul is a
Northeast Caucasian
The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or ''Vainakh-Daghestani'', is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as ...
language spoken by the
Aghuls in southern
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 ...
,
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 ...
and in
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...
. It is spoken by about 29,300
people (2010 census).
Classification
Aghul belongs to the Eastern Samur group of the
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
* Samur[Northeast Caucasian
The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or ''Vainakh-Daghestani'', is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as ...]
language family.
Geographic distribution
In 2002, Aghul was spoken by 28,300 people in Russia, mainly in Southern Dagestan, as well as 32 people in Azerbaijan.
Related languages
There are nine languages in the Lezgian language family, namely: Aghul,
Tabasaran,
Rutul
Rutul may refer to:
* Rutul people, an ethnic group in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia
*Rutul language, their Lezgic language
*Rutul (rural locality), a rural locality (a ''selo'') in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia
See also
*Rutuli, members of ...
,
Lezgian,
Tsakhur,
Budukh,
Kryts,
Udi and
Archi.
Phonology
Aghul has contrastive
epiglottal consonant
A pharyngeal consonant is a consonant that is articulated primarily in the pharynx. Some phoneticians distinguish upper pharyngeal consonants, or "high" pharyngeals, pronounced by retracting the root of the tongue in the mid to upper pharynx, ...
s.
Aghul makes, like many Northeast Caucasian languages, a distinction between tense consonants with concomitant length and weak consonants. The tense consonants are characterized by the intensiveness (tension) of articulation, which naturally leads to a lengthening of the consonant so they are traditionally transcribed with the length diacritic. The gemination of the consonant itself does not create its tension, but morphologically tense consonants often derive from adjoining two single weak consonants. Some Aghul dialects have an especially large number of permitted initial tense consonants.
Vowels
Consonants
* The
glottal stop transcribed here is named rather ambiguously a "glottalic
laryngeal" by the source.
Alphabet
Grammar
Case
There are four core cases: absolutive, ergative, genitive, and dative, as well as a large series of location cases. All cases other than the absolutive (which is unmarked) and ergative take the ergative suffix before their own suffix.
Adjectives
Independent and predicative adjectives take number marker and class marker; also case if used as nominal. As attribute they are invariable. Thus ''idžed'' "good", ergative, ''idžedi'', etc. ''-n, -s;'' pl. ''idžedar''; but ''Idže insandi hhuč qini'' "The good man killed the wolf" (subject in
ergative case
In grammar, the ergative case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that identifies the noun as the agent of a transitive verb in ergative–absolutive languages.
Characteristics
In such languages, the ergative case is typically marked (most ...
).
Pronouns
Personal pronouns
Vocabulary
Writing system
Examples
References
Bibliography
* Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. ''A grammar of Lezgian''. (Mouton grammar library; 9). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. –
*
* Talibov, Bukar B. and Magomed M. Gadžiev. 1966. ''Lezginsko-russkij slovar’''. Moskva: Izd. Sovetskaja Ėnciklopedija.
External links
Languages of the World report
Aghul basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{authority control
Northeast Caucasian languages
Languages of Azerbaijan
Languages of Russia
Endangered Caucasian languages
Languages written in Cyrillic script
Turkic languages