Avar language

The modern Avar language (self-designation магӀарул мацӀ maharul macʼ [maʕarul mat͡sʼ] "language of the mountains" or Авар мацI awar macʼ [awar mat͡sʼ] "Avar language") belongs to the Avar–Andic group of the Northeast Caucasian language family.

Geographic distribution

It is spoken mainly in the western and southern parts of the Russian Caucasus republic of Dagestan, and the Balaken, Zaqatala regions of north-western Azerbaijan.^[1] Some Avars live in other regions of Russia. There are also small communities of speakers living in the Russian republics of Chechnya and Kalmykia; in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Jordan, and the Marmara Sea region of Turkey. It has more than 1,400,000 speakers worldwide.

Official status

It is one of six literary languages of Dagestan, where it is spoken not only by the Avar, but also serves as the language of communication between different ethnic groups.

Dialects

There are two main dialect groups: the northern, which includes Khunzakh, Kazbek, Gunib, Gumbet and others; and the southern, which includes Andalal, Gidatl', Antsukh, Charoda, Tlyarata, Cumada, Cunta and others.

Morphology

Avar is genderless agglutinative language, of SOV order.

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

• Note that the source names the epiglottal series ″pharyngeal″ indiscriminately in all the tables, also when it includes a plosive and thus clearly isn't a true pharyngeal.

Writing system

The Avar language has been written since the 15th century, in the old Georgian alphabet. From the 17th century onwards it was written in a modified Arabic script known as Ajam, which is still known today. As part of Soviet language re-education policies in 1928 the Ajam was replaced by a Latin alphabet, which in 1938 was in turn replaced by the current Cyrillic script. Essentially, it is the Russian alphabet plus one additional letter called palochka (stick, Ӏ). As that letter cannot be typed with common keyboard layouts, it is often replaced with a capital Latin letter I, small Latin letter l or the digit 1.

Orthography

The Avar language is usually written in the Cyrillic script. The letters of the alphabet are (with their pronunciation given below in IPA transcription)^[3]:

/t͡ɬː/ and /ɬ/ are also written ЛI лI, Лъ лъ respectively.

History

The literary language is based on the болмацӀ (bolmacʼ) — bo = "army" or "country", and macʼ = "language" — the common language used between speakers of different dialects and languages. The bolmacʼ in turn was mainly derived from the dialect of Khunzakh, the capital and cultural centre of the Avar region, with some influence from the southern dialects. Nowadays the literary language is influencing the dialects, levelling out their differences.

The most famous figure of modern Avar literature is Rasul Gamzatov (died November 3, 2003), the People's Poet of Dagestan. Translations of his works into Russian have gained him a wide audience all over the former Soviet Union.

Samples

See also

• Northeast Caucasian languages
• Languages of the Caucasus

References

1. ^ Ethnologue entry for Avar
2. ^ Consonant Systems of the North-East Caucasian Languages on TITUS DIDACTICA
3. ^ Omniglot on the Avar alphabet, language and pronunciation

External links

• Entry for Avar at Rosetta Project
• Avar course (in French)
• RFE/RL North Caucasus Radio (also includes Chechen and Adyghe)