Mehweb (Mehweb: , ) or Megeb is a

Dargin 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 th ...

, frequently considered a dialect of a unified Dargwa language, spoken in the village of Megeb in

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 ...

, as well as by former residents of the village who have moved to larger cities, by about 800 to 900 people.

Geographical distribution

Mehweb is isolated from all other varieties of Dargwa and is surrounded by regions of Avar- and Lak-language speakers. All native speakers of Mehweb originate from Megeb, including those who have migrated to larger cities. Some Mehweb is spoken in the nearby Avar village of Obokh. There is no

language shift Language shift, also known as language transfer, language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived ...

occurring in the village, but multilingualism in

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

has increased over the years. The official language in the region is Avar, which Mehweb speakers are taught in school, and as a result, many speakers are bi- or trilingual.

Classification

While Mehweb is a typical representative of the northern branch of Dargin, its isolation, estimated to span from 300 to 1000 years, combined with the development of a distinct identity and influence from Avar and Lak, has led many to consider it as a separate language. It is completely mutually unintelligible with other Dargin languages.

Phonology

Consonants

Mehweb has 41 consonants.

Gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

does not occur. Mehweb has a three-way opposition between voiced plosives, ejectives and voiceless plosives. # and are essentially pharyngealized versions of and . # is rare and is realised as by younger speakers. # may be rarely realized as . # and are realizations of and by older speakers. # Sonorants can be articulated as being either dental or alveolar. Pharyngealization is considered to be

suprasegmental In linguistics, prosody () is the study of elements of speech, including intonation, stress, rhythm and loudness, that occur simultaneously with individual phonetic segments: vowels and consonants. Often, prosody specifically refers to such ele ...

, as it is not associated with any specific consonant or vowel. It results in epiglottalization of the glottal phonemes and

centralization Centralisation or centralization (American English) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning, decision-making, and framing strategies and policies, become concentrated within a particular ...

of vowels.

Vowels

Vowel length is not phonemic. Vowels , , and are very rare and their status is unclear, and the other pharyngealized vowels are uncommon.

Writing system

Mehweb is an unwritten language, and speakers use Avar or Russian for writing. There is no evidence that Mehweb was written using Arabic or Cyrillic in the past, unlike Archi.

References

{{Languages of the Caucasus Northeast Caucasian languages