Dargwa language

Dargwa (, ''dargan mez'') is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by the Dargin people in the Russian republic Dagestan. This article discusses the literary dialect of the dialect continuum constituting the Dargin languages. It is based on the Aqusha and Urakhi dialects of Northern Dargin.

Classification

Dargwa is part of a Northeast Caucasian dialect continuum, the Dargin languages. The other languages in this dialect continuum (such as Kajtak, Kubachi, Itsari, and Chirag) are often considered variants of Dargwa, but also sometimes considered separate languages by certain scholars. Korjakov (2012) concludes that Southwestern Dargwa is closer to Kajtak than it is to North-Central Dargwa.

Geographic distribution

According to the 2002 Census, there are 429,347 speakers of Dargwa proper in Dagestan, 7,188 in neighbouring Kalmykia, 1,620 in Khanty–Mansi AO, 680 in Chechnya, and hundreds more in other parts of Russia. Figures for the Lakh dialect spoken in central Dagestan are 142,523 in Dagestan, 1,504 in Kabardino-Balkaria, 708 in Khanty–Mansi.

Phonology

Consonants

Like other languages of the Caucasus, Dargwa is noted for its large consonant inventory, which includes over 40 phonemes (distinct sounds), though the exact number varies by dialect. Voicing, glottalization (as ejectives), fortition (which surfaces as gemination), and frication are some of the distinct features of consonants in Dargwa. Particularly noteworthy is the inclusion of an epiglottal ejective by some languages such as Mehweb, which it may be the only language in the world to use phonemically. The following chart is of the literary dialect of Dargwa.

# Mainly heard as an allophone of .
* The source is rather ambiguous in its using the term " laryngeal" for a presumed column of consonants that includes both a "voiced" and a "glottalized" plosive. A voiced glottal plosive cannot be made, because the glottis needs to be closed, and an ejective consonant requires an additional closure further up the vocal tract. Pending clarification, this row has been transcribed here as an epiglottal column and a glottal stop, both found in many other East Caucasian languages.

Vowels

The Dargwa language features five vowel sounds /i, e, ə, a, u/. Vowels /i, u, a/ can be pharyngealized as /iˤ, uˤ, aˤ/. There is also a pharyngealized mid-back vowel ˤas a realization of /uˤ/, occurring in the Mehweb variety.

Orthography

The current Dargwa alphabet is based on Cyrillic as follows:

The first Dargin alphabet was created by Peter von Uslar in the late 19th century, published in the grammar ' for the Urakhi dialect of Dargwa.

The Latin alphabet of the 1920s is not entirely supported by Unicode, but is approximately:

a ʙ c ç ꞓ d e ə f g ǥ ƣ h ħ ⱨ i j k ⱪ l m n o p ᶈ q ꝗ r s ꟍ ş t ţ u v w x ҳ ӿ z ƶ ⱬ ƶ̧

(The letters transcribed here ''ⱨ ⱪ ᶈ ҳ ⱬ'' might have cedillas instead of hooks; the printing in sources is not clear.)

Writing system comparison chart

Compiled from:

Grammar

Verb

TAM

= Assertive (finite) forms

=

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Z. G. Abdullaev: ''Darginskij jazyk'' (3 Vol.). Moskau 1993. (in Russian)
* Z. G. Abdullaev
''Darginskij jazyk''
. In: ''Jazyki narodov SSSR.'' Vol. 4. Moskau 1967. (in Russian)
* Karl Bouda: ''Die darginische Schriftsprache.'' (= ''Beiträge zur kaukasischen und sibirischen Sprachwissenschaft''. Vol. 4). Leipzig 1937.
*
*

External links

An online dictionary of Sanzhi Dargwa (in Dictionaria)
by Diana Forker
* Appendix:Cyrillic script

Dargin language



Dargwa basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database

Sanzhi Dargwa DoReCo corpus
compiled by Diana Forker and Nils Norman Schiborr. Audio recordings of narrative texts with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level, translations, and - for some texts - time-aligned morphological annotations.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dargwa Language

Northeast Caucasian languages
Languages of Russia
Dagestan