Lezgian ( ), also called Lezgi ( ) or Lezgin ( ), is a Northeast Caucasian language. It is spoken by the Lezgins, who live primarily in southern DagestanâÂÂwhere it is an official languageâÂÂand northern Azerbaijan. It is classified as "vulnerable" by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
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, ðzmir, Bursa regions of Turkey especially in Kirne (Ortaca), a village in Balikesir Province which touches the western coast, being south-west of Istanbul.
The total number of speakers is about 800,000.
Nine languages survive in the Lezgic language family:
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.
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.
Lezgian has been written in several different alphabets over the course of its history. These alphabets have been based on three scripts: Arabic (before 1928), Latin (1928âÂÂ1938), and Cyrillic (1938âÂÂpresent).
The Lezgian Cyrillic alphabet is as follows:
Lezgian is unusual for a Northeast Caucasian language in not having noun classes (also called "grammatical gender"). Standard Lezgian grammar features 18 grammatical cases, produced by agglutinating suffixes, of which 12 are still used in spoken conversation.
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 //. The vowels (// are considered neutral).
The four grammatical cases are:
The plural form of nouns is most often formed with the suffix -ar (or -jar if the word ends in a vowel). -er is also used to conform with palatal vowel harmony. The suffixes -lar/-ler are borrowed from the Turkic languages and are used for Turkic loanwords.
There are two types of declensions.
Lezgian has three native suffixes for nominal derivation: -wal, -wi, and -qðan.
-wal derives nouns from adjectives, e.g., 'proud > pride'. -wi forms nouns of origin from place names, e.g., 'person from Makhachkala'. -qðan creates agent nouns from other nouns, e.g., 'hunt > hunter'. -wal and -wi are highly productive, while -qðan is not.
Verbs are divided into two classes: strong and weak. Strong verbs are stressed on the thematic vowel (e.g., u-n), whereas weak verbs lack a thematic vowel and are stressed on the base (e.g., kis-un)..
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:
The masdar is a verbal noun and can be inflected for case and number. It is formed by suffixing -n to strong verbs and -un to weak verbs. Two additional grammatical forms based on the masdar stem are the optative and imperative moods. The optative is typically formed with the suffix -raj in both weak and strong verbs. For the imperative, most strong verbs reduplicate the last consonant of the stem, and most weak verbs keep the masdar stem to form the imperative or add -a to the stem.
From the imperfective stem, the infinitive, imperfective, continuative imperfective, future, hortative, and prohibitive form can be formed, as well as the posterior, graduative, and immediate-anterior converbs.
From the aorist stem, the aorist, aorist participle, perfect, continuative perfect, aorist converb, and immediate-anterior converb can be formed.
The numbers of Lezgian are:
Nouns following a number are always in the singular. Numbers precede the noun. "áðô" and "úÃÂòõô" lose their final "-ô" 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 , and higher numbers are formed by adding the suffix -ýø to the word (which becomes "úÃÂðýýø"; the same change occurs in ÿÃÂôúÃÂðô and úÃÂÃÂôúÃÂðô) and putting the remaining number afterwards. This way 24 for instance is úÃÂðýýø úÃÂÃÂô ("20 and 4"), and 37 is úÃÂðýýø ÃÂÃÂõÃÂøô ("20 and 17"). Numbers over 40 are formed similarly (ÃÂàÃÂÃÂÃÂàbecomes ÃÂàÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂýø). 60 and 80 are treated likewise. For numbers over 100 just put a number of hundreds, then (if need be) the word with a suffix, then the remaining number. 659 is thus ÃÂÃÂóÃÂô òøÃÂýø ÃÂàÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂýø ÃÂÃÂõúÃÂÃÂÃÂô. The same procedure follows for 1000. 1989 is ðóÃÂ÷ÃÂÃÂýø úÃÂÃÂÃÂô òøÃÂýø úÃÂÃÂôúÃÂðýýø úÃÂÃÂÃÂô in Lezgi.