Dargwa language

Dargwa
дарган мез dargan mez
Native to	Russia
Region	Dagestan
Ethnicity	590,000 Dargins (2010 census)[1]
Native speakers	490,000 (2010 census)[1]
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Dargin Dargwa
Official status
Official language in	Dagestan (Russia)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dar (also Dargin languages)
Glottolog	darg1241  (also Dargin languages)[2]

The Dargwa or Dargin language is spoken by the Dargin people in the Russian republic Dagestan. It is the literary and main dialect of the dialect continuum constituting the Dargin languages. The four other languages in this dialect continuum (Kajtak, Kubachi, Itsari, and Chirag) are often considered variants of Dargwa. Ethnologue lists these under Dargwa, but recognizes that these may be different languages. Its people are Sunni Muslims. Dargwa uses a Cyrillic script.

According to the 2002 Census, there are 429,347 speakers of Dargwa proper in Dagestan, 7,188 in neighbouring Kalmykia, 1,620 in Khanty–Mansi AO, 680 in Chechnya, and hundreds more in other parts of Russia. Figures for the Lakh dialect spoken in central Dagestan^[3] are 142,523 in Dagestan, 1,504 in Kabardino-Balkaria, 708 in Khanty–Mansi.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Dargwa^[4]

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Epi- glottal*	Glottal*
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	voiced		d			ɡ	ɢ
	voiceless	p	t			k	q	ʡ	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ			kʼ	qʼ
Affricate	voiced		d͡z	d͡ʒ
	voiceless		t͡s	t͡ʃ
	ejective		t͡sʼ	t͡ʃʼ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ	ç	x
	voiced	v	z	ʒ		ɣ	ʁ	ʢ
Trill				r
Approximant			l		j

• Note that the source is rather ambiguous in its using the term "laryngeal" for a presumed column of consonants that includes both a "voiced" and a "glottalized" plosive. A voiced glottal plosive cannot be made, because the glottis needs to be closed, and an ejective consonant requires an additional closure further up the vocal tract. Pending clarification, this row has been transcribed here as an epiglottal column and a glottal stop, both found in many other East Caucasian languages.

References

1. Dargwa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Dargwa". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. Echols, John (Jan–Mar 1952). "Lakkische Studien by Karl Bouda". Language. Linguistic Society of America. 28 (1): 159. doi:10.2307/410010. JSTOR 410010.
4. Consonant Systems of the Northeast Caucasian Languages on TITUS DIDACTICA

External links

• Appendix:Cyrillic script
• Dargin language (Russian)
• Dargwa basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database