Tabasaran language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tabasaran табасаран чIал tabasaran ĉ̣al
Spoken in:	Russia
Region:	Southern Dagestan
Total speakers:	95,905 (1993)
Language family:	Northeast Caucasian Lezgian Tabasaran
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`cau`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`tab`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Tabasaran (or Tabassaran) is a member of the Lezgian subfamily of the Northeast Caucasian languages. It is spoken in the southern parts of the Russian Caucasus republic of Dagestan. Tabasaran speakers, Tabasaran people, live in the basin of Upper Rubas-chai and Upper Chirakh-chai. There are two main dialects: North (Khanag) and South Tabasaran. It has a literary language based on the Southern dialect, one of six in the Dagestan Republic.

Tabassaran is an ergative language. It is remarkable for its case system (nouns have about 48 cases). The verb system is relatively simple; verbs agree with the noun in number, person and (in North Tabassaran) class. North Tabassaran has two noun classes, while Southern Tabassaran has none.

[edit] Sample

Uwu aldakurawu "Уву алдакураву" — "You are falling."

Uzuz uwu kkunduzuz "Узуз уву ккундузуз" — "I love you."

[edit] Bibliography

Chanmagomedov, B.G.-K. & K.T. Šalbuzov. 2001. Tabasaransko-russkij slovar’. Moskva: Ilim. ISBN 5-02-022620-3 [Includes outline of Tabasaran grammar (Grammatičeskij očerk tabasaranskogo jazyka) by K.K. Kurbanov (p. 395-476)]