Aghul language

Aghul
агъул чӀал / Ağul ç'al
Native to	Russia, also spoken in Azerbaijan
Region	Southeastern Dagestan
Ethnicity	Aguls
Native speakers	29,000 (2010 census)
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Lezgic Samur Eastern Samur Lezgi–Aghul–Tabasaran Aghul
Writing system	Cyrillic
Official status
Official language in	Dagestan (Russia)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	agx
Glottolog	aghu1253

Aghul, also spelled Agul, is a language spoken by the Aguls who live in southern Dagestan, Russia and in Azerbaijan. It is spoken by about 29,300 people (2010 census).

Classification

Aghul belongs to the Eastern Samur group of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family.

Geographic distribution

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

Official status

Aghul is not an official language, and Lezgian is used as the literary language.

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, which is the reason why they are traditionally transcribed with the length diacritic. The gemination of the consonant does not by itself create its tension, though morphologically tense consonants do often derive from adjoining two single weak consonants. Some Aghul dialects have an especially large number of permitted initial tense consonants.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Aghul

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

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

Alphabet

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Гъ гъ	Гь гь	ГьI гьI	ГI гI
Д д	Дж дж	Е е	Ё ё	Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й
К к	Кк кк	Къ къ	Кь кь	КI кI	Л л	М м	Н н
О о	П п	Пп пп	ПI пI	Р р	С с	Т т	Тт тт
ТI тI	У у	Уь уь	Ф ф	Х х	Хъ хъ	Хь хь	ХI хI
Ц ц	ЦI цI	Ч ч	Чч чч	ЧI чI	Ш ш	Щ щ	ъ
I	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 idžed "good", ergative, idžedi, etc. -n, -s; pl. idžedar; but Idže insandi hhuč qini "The good man killed the wolf" (subject in ergative case).

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

	Singular (Aghul)	Plural (Aghul)	Singular (Tokip)	Plural (Tokip)
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; 9). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. – ISBN 3-11-013735-6
• Talibov, Bukar B. and Magomed M. Gadžiev. 1966. Lezginsko-russkij slovar’. Moskva: Izd. Sovetskaja Ėnciklopedija.

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