Aghul language

Aghul
агъул чӀал / Ağul ç'al
Spoken in	Russia, also spoken in Azerbaijan
Region	Southeastern Dagestan
Ethnicity	Aguls
Native speakers	28,300  (2002 census)
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Lezgic Samur Eastern Samur Lezgi–Aghul–Tabasaran Aghul
Official status
Official language in	Dagestan
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-3	agx

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).

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.

Official status

Aghul is not an official language, and Lezgian is used as the literary language.

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. 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, which is the reason why they are traditionally transcribed with the length diacritic. The gemination of the consonant does not by itself create its tension, though morphologically tense consonants do often derive from adjoining two single weak consonants. Some Aghul dialects have an especially large number of permitted initial tense consonants.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Aghul

		Labial		Dental		Alveolar				Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Epi- glottal	Glottal
						plain		lab.
		lenis	fortis	lenis	fortis	lenis	fortis	lenis	fortis		lenis	fortis	lenis	fortis
Nasal		m		n
Plosive	voiced	b		d							ɡ
	voiceless	p	pː	t	tː						k	kː	q	qː		ʔ
	ejective	pʼ		tʼ							kʼ		qʼ
Affricate	voiced					d͡ʒ		d͡ʒʷ
	voiceless			t͡s	t͡sː	t͡ʃ	t͡ʃː	t͡ʃʷ	t͡ʃːʷ
	ejective			t͡sʼ		t͡ʃʼ		t͡ʃʷʼ
Fricative	voiceless	f	fː	s	sː	ʃ	ʃː	ʃʷ	ʃːʷ		x	xː	χ	χː	ʜ
	voiced	v		z		ʒ		ʒʷ					ʁ		ʢ	ɦ
Trill						r
Approximant				l						j

• The glottal stop transcribed here is named rather ambiguously a "glottalic laryngeal" by the source.
• Also note that the source names the epiglottal series ″pharyngeal″ indiscriminately in all the tables, also when it includes a plosive and thus clearly isn't a true pharyngeal.

Alphabet

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Гъ гъ	Гь гь	ГьI гьI	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

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 the 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

	Singular (Aghul)	Plural (Aghul)	Singular (Tokip)	Plural (Tokip)
1	zun	čin (ex), xin (in)	či (ex), xi (in)	či, xi
2	wun	čun	čun	ču

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; Maddieson, Ian (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages, Oxford: Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-19815-6 
• Talibov, Bukar B. and Magomed M. Gadžiev. 1966. Lezginsko-russkij slovar’. Moskva: Izd. Sovetskaja Ėnciklopedija.

External links

• Aghul language at LINGUIST List
• Entry for Agul at Rosetta Project
• Languages of the World report
• UCLA phonetics lab data for Agul
• Agul word lists from the UCLA phonetics lab archive