Dargwa language

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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
Writing system	Cyrillic
Official status
Official language in	Dagestan
Language codes
ISO 639-2	dar
ISO 639-3	dar (also Dargin languages)
Glottolog	darg1241 sout3261

Dargwa (дарган мез, dargan mez) is a Northeast Caucasian language 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.^[2] The four other languages in this dialect continuum (Kajtak, Kubachi, Itsari, and Chirag) are often considered variants of Dargwa. Korjakov (2012) concludes that Southwestern Dargwa is closer to Kajtak than it is to North-Central Dargwa.^[3]

Dargwa uses the 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^[4] are 142,523 in Dagestan, 1,504 in Kabardino-Balkaria, 708 in Khanty–Mansi.^{[verification needed]}

Phonology[]

Consonants[]

• Phonemes in gold are present in the literary standard dialect of Dargwa but absent in some other dialect(s).
• Phonemes in pink are present in some dialect(s) of Dargwa but absent in the literary standard dialect.
• 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.

Vowels[]

The Dargwa language features five vowel sounds /i, e, ə, a, u/. Vowels /i, u, a/ can be pharyngealized as /iˤ, uˤ, aˤ/. There may also be a pharyngealized mid-back vowel [oˤ] as a realization of /uˤ/, occurring in the Megeb dialect.^[5]

Orthography[]

The current Dargwa alphabet is based on Cyrillic as follows:

Grammar[]

Verb[]

TAM[]

Assertive (finite) forms[]

References[]

External links[]

• An online dictionary of Sanzhi Dargwa (in Dictionaria), by Diana Forker
• Appendix:Cyrillic script
• Dargin language (in Russian)
• Consonant Systems of the North-East Caucasian Languages
• Dargwa basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database

Dargwa language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator