Udi language

This article is about the Udi language. For other uses, see Udi.

Udi
удин муз, udin muz
Native to	Azerbaijan, Russia, Georgia
Region	Azerbaijan (Qabala and Oguz), Russia (North Caucasus), Georgia (Kvareli), and Armenia (Tavush)
Ethnicity	Udi people
Native speakers	3,800 in Azerbaijan (2011) 2,270 in Russia (2010), 90 in Georgia (2015)
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Lezgic Samur Eastern Samur Udi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	udi
Glottolog	udii1243
ELP	Udi
Udi is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

The Udi language, spoken by the Udi people, is a member of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. It is believed an earlier form of it was the main language of Caucasian Albania, which stretched from south Dagestan to current day Azerbaijan. The Old Udi language is also called the Caucasian Albanian language and possibly corresponds to the "Gargarian" language identified by medieval Armenian historians. Modern Udi is known simply as Udi.

The language is spoken by about 4000 people in the village of Nij, Azerbaijan, in Qabala District, in Oghuz District, as well as in parts of North Caucasus in Russia. It is also spoken by ethnic Udis living in the villages of Debetavan, Bagratashen, Ptghavan, and Haghtanak in Tavush Province of northeastern Armenia and in the village of Zinobiani (former Oktomberi) in the Qvareli Municipality of the Kakheti province of Georgia.

Udi is endangered, classified as "severely endangered" by UNESCO's Red Book of Endangered Languages.

History

The Udi language can most appropriately be broken up into five historical stages:

Early Udi	around 2000 BC – 300 AD
Old Udi	300 – 900
Middle Udi	900 – 1800
Early Modern Udi	1800 – 1920
Modern Udi	1920 – present

Soon after the year 700, the Old Udi language had probably ceased to be used for any purpose other than as the liturgical language of the Church of Caucasian Albania.

Old Udi was spoken from Tavush province and eastern Artsakh in the west to the city of Qəbələ in the east, an area centered around Utik province and the city of Partaw (now Barda).

Syntax

Old Udi was an ergative–absolutive language.

Morphology

Udi is agglutinating with a tendency towards being fusional. Udi affixes are mostly suffixes or infixes, but there are a few prefixes. Old Udi used mostly suffixes. Most affixes are restricted to specific parts of speech. Some affixes behave as clitics. The word order is SOV.

Udi does not have gender, but has declension classes. Old Udi, however, did reflect grammatical gender within anaphoric pronouns.

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels of Udi

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iˤ (y)		u uˤ
Mid	ɛ ɛˤ (œ)	ə	ɔ ɔˤ
Open	(æ)		ɑ ɑˤ

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Udi

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
				lenis	fortis
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	voiced	b	d				ɡ
	voiceless	p	t				k	q
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ				kʼ	qʼ
Affricate	voiced		d͡z	d͡ʒ	d͡ʒː
	voiceless		t͡s	t͡ʃ	t͡ʃː
	ejective		t͡sʼ	t͡ʃʼ	t͡ʃːʼ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ	ʃː		x		h
	voiced	v	z	ʒ	ʒː		ɣ
Trill				r
Approximant			l			j

Old Udi, unlike modern Udi, did not have the close-mid front rounded vowel /ø/. Old Udi contained an additional series of palatalized consonants.

Alphabet

Udi Latin alphabet table from a 1934 book

The Old Udi language used the Caucasian Albanian alphabet. As evidenced by Old Udi documents discovered at Saint Catherine's Monastery in Egypt dating from the 7th century, the Old Udi language used 50 of the 52 letters identified by Armenian scholars in later centuries as having been used in Udi language texts.

In the 1930s, there was an attempt by Soviet authorities to create an Udi alphabet based on the Latin alphabet, as shown in the image, but its usage ceased after a short time.

In 1974, a Udi alphabet based on the Cyrillic alphabet was compiled by V. L. Gukasyan. The alphabet in his Udi-Azerbaijani-Russian Dictionary is as follows:

А а	Аъ аъ	Аь аь	Б б	В в	Г г	Гъ гъ	Гь гь	Д д	Дж дж	ДжӀ джӀ
Дз дз	Е е	Ж ж	ЖӀ жӀ	З з	И и	Й й	К к	Ҝ ҝ	КӀ кӀ	Къ къ
Л л	М м	Н н	О о	Оь оь	П п	ПӀ пӀ	Р р	С с	Т т	ТӀ тӀ
У у	Уь Уь	Ф ф	Х х	Хъ хъ	Ц ц	Ц' ц'	ЦӀ цӀ	Ч ч	Ч' ч'	ЧӀ чӀ
Чъ чъ	Ш ш	ШӀ шӀ	Ы ы

This alphabet was also used in the 1996 collection Nana oččal (Нана очъал).

In the mid-1990s, a new Latin-based Udi alphabet was created in Azerbaijan. A primer and two collections of works by Georgy Kechaari were published using it and it was also used for educational purposes in the village of Nic. The alphabet is as follows:

A a	B b	C c	Ç ç	D d	E e	Ə ə	F f	G g	Ğ ğ	H h
X x	I ı	İ i	Ҝ ҝ	J j	K k	Q q	L l	M m	N n	O o
Ö ö	P p	R r	S s	Ş ş	T t	U u	Ü ü	V v	Y y	Z z
Ц ц	Цı цı	Eъ eъ	Tı tı	Əъ əъ	Kъ kъ	Pı pı	Xъ xъ	Şı şı	Öъ öъ	Çı çı
Çъ çъ	Ć ć	Jı jı	Zı zı	Uъ uъ	Oъ oъ	İъ iъ	Dz dz

In 2007 in Astrakhan, Vladislav Dabakov published a collection of Udi folklore with a Latin-based alphabet as follows:

A a	Ă ă	Ә ә	B b	C c	Ĉ ĉ	Ç ç	Ç' ç'	Č č	Ć ć	D d
E e	Ĕ ĕ	F f	G g	Ğ ğ	H h	I ı	İ i	Ĭ ĭ	J j	Ĵ ĵ
K k	K' k'	L l	M m	N n	O o	Ö ö	Ŏ ŏ	P p	P' p'	Q q
Q' q'	R r	S s	Ś ś	S' s'	Ŝ ŝ	Ş ş	T t	T' t'	U u	Ü ü
Ŭ ŭ	V v	X x	Y y	Z z	Ź ź

In 2013 in Russia, an Udi primer, Nanay muz (Нанай муз), was published with a Cyrillic-based alphabet, a modified version of the one used by V. L. Gukasyan in the Udi-Azerbaijani-Russian Dictionary. The alphabet is as follows:

А а	Аь аь	Аъ аъ	Б б	В в	Г г	Гъ гъ	Гь гь	Д д	Дз дз	Дж дж
Джъ джъ	Е е	Ж ж	Жъ жъ	З з	И и	Иъ иъ	Й й	К к	К' к'	Къ къ
Л л	М м	Н н	О о	Оь оь	Оъ оъ	П п	П' п'	Р р	С с	Т т
Т' т'	У у	Уь уь	Уъ уъ	Ф ф	Х х	Хъ хъ	Ц ц	Ц' ц'	Ч ч	Чъ чъ
Ч' ч'	Ч’ъ ч’ъ	Ш ш	Шъ шъ	Ы ы	Э э	Эъ эъ	Ю ю	Я я

See also

• Languages of the Caucasus

References

• Gippert, Jost; Wolfgang, Schulze (2007). "Some Remarks on the Caucasian Albanian Palimsest". Iran and the Caucasus. 11 (2): 208, 201–212. doi:10.1163/157338407X265441.
• Harris, Alice C. (2006), "History in Support of Synchrony", Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 30: 142–159, doi:10.3765/bls.v30i1.942
• Hewitt, George (2004). Introduction to the Study of the Languages of the Caucasus. Munich: Lincom Europa. ISBN 3895867349.
• Schulze, Wolfgang (2005). "Towards a History of Udi" (PDF). International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics: 7, 1–27. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-22. Retrieved 4 July 2012.

Further reading

• Gippert, Jost; Schulze, Wolfgang (2023). "Caucasian Albanian and Modern Udi". In Gippert, Jost; Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (eds.). Caucasian Albania: An International Handbook. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 231–260. doi:10.1515/9783110794687-005.
• Harris, Alice C. (2002). Endoclitics and the Origins of Udi Morphosyntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-924633-5.
• Lander, Yuri; Maisak, Timur (2021). ""Other" Strategies in the Eastern Caucasus (Part I): Data from Udi". Iran and the Caucasus. 25 (3): 272–283. doi:10.1163/1573384X-20210304. S2CID 239621185.
• Schulze, Wolfgang (2015). "Aspects of Udi-Iranian Language Contact". In Bläsing, Uwe; Arakelova, Victoria; Weinreich, Matthias (eds.). Studies on Iran and The Caucasus. Brill. pp. 317–324, 373–401.

External links

• Appendix:Cyrillic script
• The Udi Language: A grammatical description with sample text – Wolfgang Schulze 2001
• Udi basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
• The Udis
• Historical map
• A Functional Grammar of Udi, Wolfgang Schulze, 2002
• A Functional Grammar of Udi, Wolfgang Schulze, 2006
• The cognitive dimension of clausal organization in Udi, Wolfgang Schulze, 2000
• The Udi language, Wolfgang Schulze, 2002
• John M. Clifton: The Sociolinguistic Situation of the Udi in Azerbaijan. SIL International, 2005. (PDF-Datei; 206 kB)