Aghul language

Aghul
агъул чӀал / ağul ç̇al
Native to	Russia, also spoken in Azerbaijan
Region	Southeastern Dagestan
Ethnicity	Aghuls
Native speakers	29,300 (2010 census)[1]
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Lezgic Samur Eastern Samur Lezgi–Aghul–Tabasaran Aghul
Writing system	Cyrillic
Official status
Official language in	Russia  Dagestan
Language codes
ISO 639-3	agx
Glottolog	aghu1260  Aghulic aghu1253
ELP	Aghul

Aghul is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by the Aghuls in southern Dagestan, Russia and in Azerbaijan. It is spoken by about 29,300^[2] people (2010 census).

Classification

Aghul belongs to the Eastern Samur group of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian 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.^[3]

Related languages

There are nine languages in the Lezgian language family, namely: Aghul, Tabasaran, Rutul, Lezgian, Tsakhur, Budukh, Kryts, Udi and Archi.

Phonology

Aghul has contrastive epiglottal consonants.^[4] 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^[which?] Aghul dialects have an especially large number^[vague] of permitted initial tense consonants.^[4]

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).

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Vocabulary

Writing system

Examples

References

Bibliography

• Haspelmath, Martin (1993). A grammar of Lezgian. Mouton grammar library. Vol. 9. Mouton de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110884210. ISBN 3-11-013735-6. LCCN 92-45620.
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
• Talibov, Bukar B.; Gadžiev, Magomed M. (1966). Lezginsko-russkij slovar'. Moskva: Izd. Sovetskaja Ėnciklopedija. OCLC 231755759.

External links

Aghul language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator