Chinalugian language
| Chinalugic | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Azerbaijan | |
| speaker | approx. 3,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
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The Chinalug (h) ische (own name: [ketʃ mitsʼ] or [kaʕtʃ mitsʼ]) is spoken by around 3,000 people in Azerbaijan , especially in the villages of Xınalıq (whose name is the name of “Chinalugian”) and Gülüstan . It belongs to the north-east Caucasian languages and is assigned by some researchers to the Lesgic subgroup of this language family.
Linguistic situation
Khinalugian is threatened with extinction as it is under strong assimilation pressure from Azerbaijani.
Linguistic characteristics
The vowel system of Chinalugic includes the vowels a, e, i, ɨ, o, u, ä, ö, ü , which also occur nasally .
Chinalugic has 4 nominal classes and 16 cases , including 12 locatives ; it is an ergative language .
literature
- Ju. D. Dešeriev: Grammatika chinalugskogo jazyka. Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow 1959. (in Russian)
- George Hewitt: Introduction to the Study of the Languages of the Caucasus . LINCOM Europe, Munich 2004, p. 29.
- Aleksandr E. Kibrik: Fragmenty grammatiki chinalugskogo jazyka . Moscow University Publishing House, Moscow 1972. (in Russian)
- Aleksandr E. Kibrik: Khinalug . In: Rieks Smeets (Ed.): The Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus . Vol. 4, pp. 367-406. Caravan Books, Delmar (New York) 1994.
Web links
Wiktionary: Chinalugic - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
- Ethnologue, Languages of the World: Khinalugh
- John M. Clifton et al .: The Sociolinguistic Situation of the Khinalug in Azerbaijan . SIL International, 2005. (PDF file; 343 kB)
- Project Etheo: Chinalugian, in Russian ( Memento from August 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )