Archi language

Archi is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by the Archis in the village of Archib, southern Dagestan, Russia, and the six surrounding smaller villages.
It is unusual for its many phonemes and for its contrast between several voiceless velar lateral fricatives,, tenuis and ejective velar lateral affricates,, and a voiced velar lateral fricative,. It is an ergative–absolutive language with four noun classes and has a morphological system with irregularities on all levels. Mathematically, there are 1,502,839 possible forms that can be derived from a single verb root.

Classification

The classification of the Archi language has not been definitively established. Peter von Uslar felt it should be considered a variant of Avar, but Roderich von Erckert saw it as closer to Lak. The language has also been considered as a separate entity that could be placed somewhere between Avar and Lak. The Italian linguist Alfredo Trombetti placed Archi within an Avar–Ando–Dido group, but today the most widely recognized opinion follows that of the Soviet scholar Bokarev, who regards Archi as one of the Lezgian–Samur group of the Dagestan languages. Schulze places it in the Lezgian branch with all other Lezgian languages belonging to the Samur group.

Phonology

Archi has, like its Northeast Caucasian relatives, a very complicated phonological system, with Archi being an extreme example. It has 26 vowel phonemes and, depending on analysis, between 74 and 82 consonant phonemes.

Vowels

Archi has a symmetric six-vowel system.
All vowels except for can occur in five varieties: short, pharyngealized, high tone, long, and pharyngealized with high tone. Of all these, only and do not occur word-initially. Examples of non-initial are and .

Consonants

Of all living languages, Archi has the world's largest phonemic non-click consonant inventory, with only the recently extinct Ubykh of the Northwest Caucasian languages having a few more. The table below shows all consonants that can be found in the Archi Language Tutorial and the Archi Dictionary.

These have no word-initial dictionary entries.
These appear in the Tutorial but have no dictionary entries.
This does not appear in the Tutorial but does have a word-internal dictionary entry.

Some of these sounds are very rare. For example, has only one dictionary entry word-internally and two entries word-initially. Likewise, has only two dictionary entries: and .
The fortis consonants are not simply two instances of the same consonant, though they do appear largely complementary, with the double instances,, and being the most common and less so. That said, can still be found in . This is also noted by, who describes the fortis consonants as follows:

"Strong phonemes are characterized by the intensiveness of the articulation. The intensity of the pronunciation leads to a natural lengthening of the duration of the sound, and that is why strong differ from weak ones by greater length. the adjoining of two single weak sounds does not produce a strong one Thus, the gemination of a sound does not by itself create its tension."

The voiceless velar lateral fricative, the voiced velar lateral fricative, and the corresponding voiceless and ejective affricates, are extremely unusual speech sounds among the languages of the world, because velar fricatives are usually median rather than lateral. The velar laterals are further forward than velars in most languages and could better be called prevelar, like the Tutorial does.

Orthography

Until recently Archi did not have a written form, except in studies by specialists who used the Latin script. In 2006, the Surrey Morphology Group developed a Cyrillic alphabet for Archi based on the Avar alphabet, which is used in the Archi–Russian–English Dictionary alongside an IPA transcription.

А а	Аӏ аӏ	А́ а́	А́а а́а	А́ӏ а́ӏ	Ы ы	Б б
В в	Г г	Гв гв	Гъ гъ	Гъв гъв	Гъӏ гъӏ	Гъӏв гъӏв
Гь гь	Гӏ гӏ	Д д	Дв дв	Е е	Еӏ еӏ	Е́ е́
Е́е е́е	Е́ӏ е́ӏ	Ж ж	Жв жв	З з	Зв зв	И и
Иӏ иӏ	И́ и́	И́и и́и	И́ӏ и́ӏ	Й й	К к	Кв кв
Кк кк	Ккв ккв	Ккъ ккъ	Ккъӏ ккъӏ	Къ къ	Къв къв	Къӏ къӏ
Къӏв къӏв	Кь кь ,	Кьв кьв	Кӏ кӏ	Кӏв кӏв	Л л	Ллъ ллъ
Ллъв ллъв	Лъ лъ	Лъв лъв	Лӏ лӏ	Лӏв лӏв	М м	Н н
О о	Оӏ оӏ	О́ о́	О́о о́о	О́ӏ о́ӏ	П п	Пп пп
Пӏ пӏ	Р р	С с	Св св	Сс сс	Ссв ссв	Т т
Тв тв	Тт тт	Тӏ тӏ	У у	Уӏ уӏ	У́ у́	У́у у́у
У́ӏ у́ӏ	Х х	Хв хв	Хх хх	Ххв ххв	Ххьӏ ххьӏ	Ххьӏв ххьӏв
Хъ хъ	Хъв хъв	Хъӏ хъӏ	Хъӏв хъӏв	Хьӏ хьӏ	Хьӏв хьӏв	Ц ц
Цв цв	Цц цц	Ццӏ ццӏ	Цӏ цӏ	Цӏв цӏв	Ч ч	Чв чв
Ччӏ ччӏ	Чӏ чӏ	Чӏв чӏв	Ш ш	Шв шв	Щ щ	Щв щв
Ъ ъ	-	-	-	-	-	-

Grammar

Nouns

Archi nouns inflect for number and for one of 10 regular cases and 5 locative cases that can all take one of 6 directional suffixes. There are four noun classes, which are only evident from verbal agreement.

Case

Case	Marker	Sg. 'ram'	Pl. 'rams'
Absolutive	-∅	baˤkʼ	baˤkʼ-ur
Ergative	-∅	beˤkʼ-iri	baˤkʼ-ur-čaj
Genitive	-n	beˤkʼ-iri-n	baˤkʼ-ur-če-n
Dative	-s, -sː	beˤkʼ-iri-s	baˤkʼ-ur-če-s
Comitative	-?ːu	beˤkʼ-iri-?ːu	baˤkʼ-ur-če-?ːu
Similative	-qˤdi	beˤkʼ-iri-qˤdi	baˤkʼ-ur-če-qˤdi
Causal	-šːi	beˤkʼ-iri-šːi	baˤkʼ-ur-če-šːi
Comparative	-χur	beˤkʼ-iri-χur	baˤkʼ-ur-če-χur
Partitive	-qˤiš	beˤkʼ-iri-qˤiš	baˤkʼ-ur-če-qˤiš
Substitutive	-k͡?ʼəna	beˤkʼ-iri-k͡?ʼəna	baˤkʼ-ur-če-k͡?ʼəna

Depending on the specifics of the analysis, the ergative and the absolutive cases are not always marked by a specific suffix. Rather, they are marked by the use of the basic and oblique stems in the absence of other markers. There is also a locative-case series in which 6 directional-case suffixes are combined with 5 spatial cases to produce a total of 30 case-localization combinations. However, they do not constitute 30 distinct case forms because they are easily derivable from a pair of morphemes.

Noun classes

The four noun classes of Archi are only evident from verbal inflection. This table summarizes the noun classes and their associated verbal morphology:

Example phrases

The following phrases were phonetically transcribed from Archi:

Archi transcription	English
x́it barḳur	The ladle breaks.
x́it ax̄u	The spoon became dirty.
k̂ut̄ali berx̄ur	The bag stays.
k̂ut̄ali eku	The little bag fell.
č̣ut abḳu	The jug broke.
č̣ut aḳu	The little jug broke.
ḳunḳum barx̄ur	The kettle becomes dirty.
ḳunḳum oq̄́u	The little kettle sank.
motol orq̄́ur	The young goat drowns.
uri arč̣ur	The young horse hides itself.
biš ač̣u	The young cow hid itself.
ḳêrt erkur	The young donkey falls.
dogi ebku	The donkey fell.
q̇on abč̣u	The goat hid itself.
nôiš ebx̄u	The horse stayed.

Diminutive

The inclusions of "little" and "young" in the phrases translate a diminutive, which in Archi language commonly refers either to a smaller or younger version of the subject. The non-diminutive nouns in the above examples belong to noun class III, while their diminutives belong to noun class IV. This difference in noun class is reflected on the verb in all of these examples, by the contrast between class III agreement in b from class IV in ∅. The -b- in the past tense appears in front of the -x̄u / -č̣u / -ku inflection, while in the present tense the b- is the first letter of the verb. For the nouns referring to inanimate objects, the class shift is the only sign of the diminutive: the noun itself does not change in form. E.g. x́it means both "ladle" and "spoon", k̂ut̄ali both "bag" and "little bag". Nouns pertaining to younger animals have different words, e.g. dogi "donkey" but ḳêrt "young donkey", nôiš "horse" but uri "young horse".