Aghul language

Aghul
Template:Tlit
Native to	North Caucasus, also spoken in Azerbaijan
Region	Southeastern Dagestan
Ethnicity	Aghuls
Native speakers	33,182 (2020 census)
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Lezgic Samur Eastern Samur Lezgi–Aghul–Tabasaran Aghul
Writing system	Cyrillic
Official status
Official language in	Russia Dagestan
Regulated by	Gamzata Tsadasa Institute of Language, Literature and Art
Language codes
ISO 639-3	agx
Glottolog	aghu1260  Aghulic aghu1253
ELP	Template:Endangered Languages Project
Linguasphere	Template:Infobox language/lingualist
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Aghul
Agul is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010).

Aghul is a Lezgic language within the Northeast Caucasian family, primarily spoken by the Aghuls in Azerbaijan and Southern Dagestan in Russia. It is spoken by about 33,200 people (2020 census).

Classification

Aghul belongs to the Eastern Samur group of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. Glottolog splits the Aghul language between the Qushan/Koshan group and other Aghul dialects due to the Qushan dialects being unintelligible with the other dialects.

Geographic distribution

In 2002, Aghul was spoken by 28,300 people in Russia, mainly in Southern Dagestan, as well as 32 people in Azerbaijan.

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, so they are traditionally transcribed with the length diacritic. The gemination of the consonant itself does not create its tension, but morphologically tense consonants often derive from adjoining two single weak consonants. Some Aghul dialects have a large number of permitted initial tense consonants.

Vowels

Vowels of Aghul

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		ɯ	u
Mid	e
Open		a

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Aghul

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

• The glottal stop transcribed here is named rather ambiguously a "glottalic laryngeal" by the source.

Alphabet

The Aghul alphabet was devised in the 1990s. Ever since then, it has been used as a language of education, with primers, textbooks, and dictionaries published.

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Гъ гъ	Гь гь	ГӀ гӏ	Д д
Дж дж	Е е	Ё ё	Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й	К к
Кк кк	Къ къ	Кь кь	КӀ кӏ	Л л	М м	Н н	О о
П п	Пп пп	ПӀ пӏ	Р р	С с	Т т	Тт тт	ТӀ тӏ
У у	Уь уь	Ф ф	Х х	Хъ хъ	Хь хь	ХӀ хӏ	Ц ц
ЦӀ цӏ	Ч ч	Чч чч	ЧӀ чӏ	Ш ш	Щ щ	ъ	ӏ
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 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 "good", ergative, , etc. -n, -s; pl. ; but "The good man killed the wolf" (subject in ergative case).

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

	Aghul		Tokip
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
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. Vol. 9. Mouton de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110884210. ISBN 3-11-013735-6. LCCN 92-45620.
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
• Talibov, Bukar B.; Gadžiev, Magomed M. (1966). Lezginsko-russkij slovar'. Moskva: Izd. Sovetskaja Ėnciklopedija. OCLC 231755759.

External links

• Languages of the World report
• UCLA phonetics lab data for Aghul
• Aghul word lists from the UCLA phonetics lab archive
• Aghul basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database