Dagestan languages are one of the largest language families, distinguished by the unusual diversity of dialects. There are about 7 million carriers. And in this regard, the Caucasus - the "country of mountains" - also becomes a kind of "mountain of languages." What is the range of this linguistic group and what is the Russian-Dagestan language?
Classification
Dagestan languages are included in the west-eastern group of Caucasian languages among the language families of the Eurasian continent and are divided into 5-6 branches. The eastern part of this group, or Chechen-Dagestan, is related to the western, or Abkhaz-Adyghe. In all languages of this group, one can trace the presence of a common phonetic system.
Sometimes this Caucasian isogloss is called the Nakh-Dagestan languages, since all the eastern languages budded into a separate Nakh cluster in the 3rd century BC. e. The Nakh branch has the largest number of carriers - more than 2,500,000 people.
History of occurrence
Initially, there was a common East Caucasian language of the inflective-agglutinative type, that is, using mainly a method of adding various endings in word formation. After the III century BC. e. one can already observe the disintegration of the common Protavkazian language into groups, including Dagestan, which began to include many dialects, and then individual languages, which have only some similarity in phonetic, grammatical and syntactic structure.
The final discrepancy can be dated to the early Bronze Age.
Area
The languages of Dagestan are widespread throughout the Caucasus, in particular in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia. Some carriers live in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Jordan and other countries belonging to the Middle East.
Composition of the language family
The family of Dagestan languages is quite extensive. However, even half of all languages included in this Dagestan isogloss have not been studied by oriental linguists. Only Chechen, Avar, Dargin, Lak and Lezghin scholars worked out well by the scientists, while the rest were either little studied or not affected at all.
The language scheme of the Dagestan languages has the following form:
- Nakhsky is the first branch. It includes Chechen, Ingush and Bazbi languages. This branch has the largest number of carriers, because there are only two million Chechens.
- Avar-Ando-Tsesian languages - the second branch of the language family of Dagestan. It includes several subgroups: Avar-Andean, Andean, as well as Tses, or Dido. These sub-branches make up the lion's share of all other carriers of this language group.
- Laksky is the third branch of the Dagestan language family, which includes only the Lak language itself with the number of speakers of about 140,000 people.
- Dargin - this is the fourth branch, which includes several subgroups: North Dargin, Megeb, Southwest Dargin, Chirag, Kaitag and Kubach-Akhshtins. All these sub-branches are dialects with the number of speakers not exceeding 2,000 people for each language subgroup.
- Lezgi languages are the fifth branch of the Dagestan language family. Includes several subgroups: East Lezgi, West Lezgi, South Lezgi, Archa and Udine. Number of carriers: 1,000 to half a million people, depending on the language subgroup.
- Khinalug - this is the sixth branch, which includes the only Khinalug language, which is poorly understood.
Language branches
Each branch is divided into many dialects and dialects, presented in all its diversity.
The Nakh branch includes:
- Chechen - about 2 million people.
- Ingush - 455,868 people.
- Batsby - 3000 carriers.
The Avar-Ando-Tses branch include:
- Avar - about 1 million people.
- Andean - about 6,000 carriers.
- Akhvakhsky - about 200 people.
- Karatinsky - more than 250 carriers.
- Botlikhsky - more than 200 people.
- Godoberia - 128 carriers.
- Bagvalinsky - almost 1,500 people.
- Tindinsky - more than 6,500 carriers.
- Chamalinsky - about 500 people.
- Cesky - about 12,500 carriers.
- Khvarshinsky - poorly understood, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Inkhokvarinsky - poorly studied, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Ginuhsky - about 500 people.
- Bezhtinsky - almost 7000 carriers.
- Gunzib - more than 1000 people.
The Lak branch includes only the Lak language itself with the number of speakers a little more than 100,000 people.
The Dargin branch includes:
- Akushinsky - poorly understood, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Darginsky literary - poorly understood, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Muginsky - about 3,000 people.
- Tsudakhar - poorly understood, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Gapshiminsko-Butrinsky is poorly studied, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Urakhinsky, which includes the Cabian and Hürkilin dialects with the number of carriers up to 70,000 people.
- Murego-Gubden - poorly understood, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Kadarsky is poorly understood, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Muirinsky - about 18,000 people.
- Megebsky - poorly understood, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Sirkhinsky - poorly understood, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Amukh-Khudutsky - about 1,600 people.
- Kunkinsky - poorly understood, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Sanzhi Itsarinsky - poorly understood, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Kaitagsky - about 21,000 people.
- Kubachinsky - poorly understood, the number of carriers is unknown.
- Ashtinsky - about 2000 people.
The Lezgin branch includes:
- Lezginsky - more than 650,000 people.
- Tabasaransky - more than 126,000 carriers.
- Agulsky - about 30,000 people.
- Rutulsky - more than 30,000 carriers.
- Tsakhursky - about 10,000 people.
- Budukhsky - about 5,000 carriers.
- Kryzsky - about 9,000 people.
- Archinsky - almost 1000 carriers.
- Udinsky - about 8000 people.
The Lezgi branch also included two more: Albanian and Aghvan, which are now considered dead languages.
The last branch includes only Khinalugsky.
According to UNESCO, in the Republic of Dagestan there are 25 languages that are threatened with extinction. Some languages are spoken by only a few thousand or even several hundred people. The current time for Dagestan and its languages is the most difficult. The younger generation is less and less using their national dialect in everyday speech.
"Relatives"
If we take the dictionary of the Dagestan language, for example Chechen-Russian, and refer to the article by Professor A. K. Gleie entitled “On the Prehistory of the North Caucasian Languages” published in 1907, you can see the similarity of Chechen with the Mitanni language mentioned in the article. This was the dialect of ancient Messopotamia, where Abkhaz-Circassian tribes once lived in the neighborhood. This language was the middle link between the Abkhaz and Nakh-Dagestan languages.
Other scholars, Starostin and Dyakonov, believe that the languages of this republic are similar to Hurrian, whose range was in the south of the Armenian Highlands.
Phonetic features
Words in the Dagestan language are characterized by moderate vocalism, that is, the presence of vowels within 10, and a very complex consonantism. In some dialects, this number of consonants can reach 45.
The languages of Dagestan are used not only by voiced and deaf, but also by aspirants - a combination of these sounds, as well as consonants with aspiration, which is an important distinguishing feature of all eastern languages. Vowels most often do not differ in longitude, but are divided into nasal and throat sounds with the addition of a consonant. The stress system is movable. She often submits to phrasal division and intonation.
Morphological features
In the dictionary of the Dagestan language, you can see that the words are mainly formed by affixing the base and adding various inflections. There are far fewer prefixes or prefixes in the languages and dialects of Dagestan than suffixes.
Nouns have categories of case, numbers, and verbs have a category of class, aspect, time, and mood. In some languages, for example, in Batsby, Lak, and Dargin, there is personal conjugation, while in others, subjective and object conjugation predominates. Adjectives, unlike the Russian language, are an unchangeable part of speech. And the numerals can be seen in both decimal and decimal systems.
Syntax Features
The syntax of the Dagestan languages, Avar, for example, often admits an inverse order, and the word order in a sentence is almost always neutral. Oriental scholars are inclined to believe that in languages there are predominantly ergative constructions in which only action predominates than nominative ones, where the noun becomes the main member of the sentence.
Not all linguists also share the idea that Dagestan languages have a complex sentence, although simple, complex allied and non-union ones are quite well developed.
The center of the sentence, of course, is the predicate expressed by the verb.
Vocabulary
With regard to vocabulary, we can say that the basis of all Dagestan languages is a large layer of primordial word forms and derivatives of them.
A distinctive feature in the lexical plan can be called the presence of special name classes of 5 or 6 types, for example, classes of men, women, things in different numbers.
There are a lot of languages in Russia today, especially in Chechen and Ingush. To say that there is a Russian-Dagestan language does not mean to joke.
Writing
For the most part, the languages and dialects of Dagestan are unwritten or have an undeveloped writing system. However, since the speakers of this language group mainly practice Islam, then Arabic graphics penetrate languages together with this religion.
Already in the 17th century, Avars began to adjust the Arabic alphabet to the phonetic system. During this period, the Ajama script is created, which adapts the Arabic alphabet, making sure that all the sounds of the Dagestan language can be reflected on the letter. This is obtained as follows - one letter of the Arabic alphabet conveys several sounds in a letter.
Since the 30s of the XX century, this Ajama alphabet begins to deform and evolve. The alphabet itself is called "New Adjam", the font is cast, and the first printed experiments on religious topics are already emerging. Later, textbooks and popular science literature will be printed. In the 40s, “New Adjam” was replaced by the Latin alphabet, which is based on the Turkic.
In addition, some languages are detached from the general graphic rule and use writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet, that is, Russian graphics.
These are languages such as:
- Chechen.
- Ingush.
- Avar
- Laksky.
- Darginsky.
- Lezginsky.
- Tabasaran.
It is interesting! One of the Dagestan languages translated into Russian called Udin, had its own written language.
Thus, the languages of Dagestan are one of the most extensive and diverse language families. Mostly those who speak Dagestan dialects live in the Caucasus, but carriers can also be found in the countries of the Middle East. Languages are not only rich in their phonetic system, but also make up the living culture of mountain peoples.
How many songs were written in the Dagestan language and how many samples of high poetry! In addition, many people from Dagestan, such as the poet Rasul Gamzatov and the athlete Elena Isinbaeva, are known throughout the world. The music of the Dagestan language is represented on the Russian stage by such stars as Jasmine and Elbrus Dzhanmirzoev, who very often sing national songs, not forgetting their native dialect.