Aghul language
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| Aghul | ||
|---|---|---|
| агъул чӀал | ||
| Spoken in | Russia, also spoken in Azerbaijan | |
| Region | Southeastern Dagestan | |
| Total speakers | 28,300 (2002 census)[1] | |
| Language family | Northeast Caucasian | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1 | None | |
| ISO 639-2 | agx | |
| ISO 639-3 | agx | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Aghul, also spelled Agul, is a language spoken by the Aguls who live in southern Dagestan, Russia and in Azerbaijan. It is spoken by about 28,300 people (2002 census).
Contents |
[edit] History
Probable history of the language. What language it is derived from. Dates of movement of major groups of speakers, etc.
[edit] Classification
Aghul belongs to the Eastern Samur group of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family.
[edit] Geographic distribution
In 2002, Aghul was spoken by 28,300 people in Russia, mainly in Southern Dagestan, as well as 32 people in Azerbaijan.[2]
[edit] Official status
Aghul is not an official language, and Lezgian is used as the literary language.
[edit] Related languages
There are nine languages in the Lezgian language family, namely: Aghul, Tabasaran, Rutul, Lezgian, Tsakhur, Budukh, Kryts, Udi and Archi.
[edit] Phonology
Aghul has contrastive epiglottal consonants.[3]
The North Caucasian languages (Circassian and Dagestanian) have a consonantal distinction described as strong or preruptive that has concomitant length. Akhvakh and other Dagestanian languages even possess a distinction between strong/long and weak/short ejective consonants: [qʼaː] soup, broth vs. [qːʼama] cock's comb. (Tense phonemes in these languages are traditionally transcribed with the length diacritic, following the Cyrillic orthography of these languages.) Kodzasov (1977:228, translated in L&M 1996:97–98) describes them for Archi: "Strong phonemes are characterized by the intensiveness (tension) of the articulation. The intensity of the pronunciation leads to a natural lengthening of the duration of the sound, and that is why strong [consonants] differ from weak ones by greater length. [However,] 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." Nonetheless, Ladefoged and Maddieson examined Kodzasov's Archi recordings, and their impression was that "length should be given the primary role; strong consonants have approximately twice the duration of weak ones, and they often do result from adjoining two single consonants, at least morphologically speaking. The patterns in other Dagestanian languages are similar, but some Agul dialects have an especially large number of permitted initial long consonants."[4]
[edit] Vowels
Vowel chart and discussion of vowels.
[edit] Consonants
Consonant chart and discussion of consonants.
[edit] Historical sound changes
Description of important sound changes in the history of the language. (Maybe this should go under history?)
[edit] Alphabet
| А а | Б б | В в | Г г | Гъ гъ | Гь гь | ГI гI | Д д |
| Дж дж | Е е | Ё ё | Ж ж | З з | И и | Й й | К к |
| Кк кк | Къ къ | Кь кь | КI кI | Л л | М м | Н н | О о |
| П п | Пп пп | ПI пI | Р р | С с | Т т | Тт тт | ТI тI |
| У у | Уь уь | Ф ф | Х х | Хъ хъ | Хь хь | ХI хI | Ц ц |
| ЦI цI | Ч ч | Чч чч | ЧI чI | Ш ш | Щ щ | ъ | I |
| ы | ь | Э э | Ю ю | Я я |
[edit] Grammar
[edit] 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).
[edit] Pronouns
[edit] Personal Pronouns
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | zun | |
| 2 | ||
| 3 |
[edit] Vocabulary
This section should contain a discussion of any special features of the vocabulary (or lexicon) of the language, like if it contains a large number of borrowed words or a different sets of words for different politeness levels, taboo groups, etc.
[edit] Writing system
Brief description of the writing system(s) used to write the language. Writing systems have their own page, so what's written here should just be a brief discussion of how this language makes any special use of the writing system and a link to all the writing systems used to write the language.
[edit] Examples
Some short examples of the language in the writing system(s) used to write the language. You might also include sound samples of the language being spoken.
[edit] References
[edit] Bibliography
- Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. A grammar of Lezgian. (Mouton grammar library; 9). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. – ISBN 3-11-013735-6
- Ladefoged, Peter & Ian Maddieson (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages, Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-19815-6
- Talibov, Bukar B. and Magomed M. Gadžiev. 1966. Lezginsko-russkij slovar’. Moskva: Izd. Sovetskaja Ėnciklopedija.
[edit] External links
- Aghul language at Linguist List
- Entry for Agul at Rosetta Project
- Ethnologue report for Lezgi
- Languages of the World report
- UCLA phonetics lab data for Agul
- Agul word lists from the UCLA phonetics lab archive
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