Lezgian language

Lezgian, also called Lezgi or Lezgin, is a Northeast Caucasian language. It is spoken by the Lezgins, who live primarily in southern Dagestan—where it is an official language—and northern Azerbaijan. It is classified as "vulnerable" by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.

Geographic distribution

In 2002, Lezgian was spoken by about 397,000 people in Russia, mainly Southern Dagestan; in 1999 it was spoken by 178,400 people in mainly the Qusar, Quba, Qabala, Oghuz, Ismailli and Khachmaz provinces of northeastern Azerbaijan. Lezgian is also spoken in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Germany and Uzbekistan by immigrants from Azerbaijan and Dagestan.
Some speakers are in the Balikesir, Yalova, İzmir, Bursa regions of Turkey especially in Kirne, a village in Balikesir Province which touches the western coast, being south-west of Istanbul.
The total number of speakers is about 800,000.

Classification

Related languages

Nine languages survive in the Lezgic language family:Lezgin

These have the same names as their ethnic groups.
Some dialects differ heavily from the standard form, including the Quba and Akhty dialects spoken in Azerbaijan.

Phonology

Vowels

has two main allophones: and ; the former prevails in closed syllables, the latter in open syllables.
is very often rounded and raised to after labialized consonants, which may then lose their labialization. For example, кӏвач becomes or.
is more open in stressed syllables and or in pre-stress syllables. In the environment of labialized consonants /e/ is often pronounced as ~.
if a vowel plus sequence is not followed by a vowel, the may be deleted and the vowel nasalized. Thus can be pronounced.
Chitoran and Babaliyeva show, at least for Babaliyeva in her native Yargun dialect, pre-tonic high vowels are syncopated.

Consonants

There are 54 consonants in Lezgian. Characters to the right are the letters of the Lezgian Cyrillic Alphabet. Aspiration is not normally indicated in the orthography, despite the fact that it is phonemic.

Alphabets

Lezgian has been written in several different alphabets over the course of its history. These alphabets have been based on three scripts: Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic.
The Lezgian Cyrillic alphabet is as follows:

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Гъ гъ	Гь гь	Д д	Е е
Ё ё	Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й	К к	Къ къ	Кь кь
КI кl	Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п	ПI пl	Р р
С с	Т т	ТI тl	У у	Уь уь	Ф ф	Х х	Хъ хъ
Хь хь	Ц ц	ЦI цl	Ч ч	ЧI чl	Ш ш	Ъ ъ	Ы ы
Ь ь	Э э	Ю ю	Я я

Grammar

Lezgian is unusual for a Northeast Caucasian language in not having noun classes. Standard Lezgian grammar features 18 grammatical cases, produced by agglutinating suffixes, of which 12 are still used in spoken conversation.

Vowel Harmony

Lezgian has a limited form of palatal and labial vowel harmony. In native Lezgian words, only syllables up to and including the stressed syllable are subject to vowel harmony. Since native Lezgian words are never stressed after the second syllable, only two vowels in a word can be subject to vowel harmony.
Palatal harmony contrasts the front vowels // with the back vowels //, and labial vowel harmony contrasts the labialized vowels // with non-labialized //.

Cases

The four grammatical cases are:

Absolutive case : marks the subject of an intransitive verb and the direct object of a transitive sentence. It is also used to mark a nominal predicate and as a vocative.
Ergative case : marks the subject of transitive verbs, and the subject of some compound intransitive verbs.
Genitive case : marks possession. It is also used with the meaning 'of'. The genitive case precedes the noun that it modifies.
Dative case : usually marks the indirect object of sentences, that is the recipient of an action. It is also used to mark the subject of some verbs and to express a point of time and direction.
There are fourteen Locative cases:
* Adessive case : marks the object of some verbs to mean 'by', 'to', 'with'.
* Adelative case : expresses movement from somewhere. It is also used with the verb 'to be able' and to express an accidental action.
* Addirective case : used as an instrumental case, but also sometimes used with its original meaning, 'in the direction of', and more rarely 'near by'.
* The Postessive case : means 'behind', 'at', 'toward', 'in exchange for', and 'with'. In a construction with the verb ава, it expresses possession.
* Postelative case : can either mean 'from' or the cause of fear or shame.
* Postdirective case : rarely used case, meaning 'toward'.
* Subessive case : means either 'below' or 'participates'.
* Subelative case : means either 'from below', 'from', ' against', 'with' or 'out of'. It is also used to mark Y in the construction 'X becomes out-of-Y' and can express the topic of a sentence or the cause of emotions.
* Subdirective case : expresses cause, and can mean 'because' or 'of' : means 'at', 'in' or 'during/whilst'.
* Inelative case : means 'out of' or 'in return for'.
* Superessive case : means 'on', and also to express the cause of some emotions.
* Superelative case : means 'off', 'after' or 'than'.
* Superdirective case : means 'onto', 'until', 'in', as an instrumental case or instructive with abstract nouns.

Declension

There are two types of declensions.

Verbal Inflection

Verbs are divided into two classes: strong and weak. Strong verbs are stressed on the thematic vowel, whereas weak verbs lack a thematic vowel and are stressed on the base.
The inflectional endings are divided into three groups based on the type of stem: the masdar, imperfective, and aorist stems. However, the different stem forms are only distinguished in strong verbs. A partial paradigm is given below:

Vocabulary

Numbers

The numbers of Lezgian are:

уд		zero
сад		one
кьвед		two
пуд		three
кьуд		four
вад		five
ругуд		six
ирид		seven
муьжуьд		eight
кlуьд		nine
цlуд		ten
цlусад		eleven
цlикьвед		twelve
цlипуд		thirteen
цlикьуд		fourteen
цlувад		fifteen
цlуругуд		sixteen
цlерид		seventeen
цlемуьжуьд		eighteen
цlекlуьд		nineteen
къад		twenty
къадцуд		thirty
яхцlур		forty
яхцlурцуд		fifty
пудкъад		sixty
пудкъадцlуд		seventy
кьудкъад		eighty
къудкъадницlуд		ninety
виш		one hundred
агъзур		one thousand

Nouns following a number are always in the singular. Numbers precede the noun. "Сад" and "кьвед" lose their final "-д" before a noun.
Lezgian numerals work in a similar fashion to the French ones, and are based on the vigesimal system in which "20", not "10", is the base number. "Twenty" in Lezgian is къад, and higher numbers are formed by adding the suffix -ни to the word and putting the remaining number afterwards. This way 24 for instance is къанни кьуд, and 37 is къанни цӏерид. Numbers over 40 are formed similarly. 60 and 80 are treated likewise. For numbers over 100 just put a number of hundreds, then the word with a suffix, then the remaining number. 659 is thus ругуд вишни яхцӏурни цӏекӏуьд. The same procedure follows for 1000. 1989 is агьзурни кӏуьд вишни кьудкъанни кӏуьд in Lezgi.