Tabasaran language

Tabasaran (also written Tabassaran) is a Northeast Caucasian language of the Lezgic branch. It is spoken by the Tabasaran people in the southern part of the Russian Republic of Dagestan. There are two main dialects: North (Khanag) and South Tabasaran. It has a literary language based on the Southern dialect, one of the official languages of Dagestan.

Tabasaran
Tabassaran
табасаран чIал tabasaran ç̇al ихь чIал ix ç̇al
Pronunciation	[tɑbɑsɑrɑn t͡ʃʼɑl] [ix t͡ʃʼɑl]
Native to	North Caucasus
Region	Southern Dagestan
Ethnicity	Tabasarans
Native speakers	126,900 (2010 census)[1]
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Lezgic Samur Eastern Samur Lezgi–Aghul–Tabasaran Tabasaran
Official status
Official language in	Russia  Dagestan
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tab
Glottolog	taba1259
ELP	Tabasaran
Map of Tabasarans in the Caucasus
Tabasaran is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Tabasaran is an ergative language. The verb system is relatively simple; verbs agree with the subject in number, person and (in North Tabasaran) class. North Tabasaran has two noun classes (that is, grammatical gender), whereas Southern Tabasaran lacks noun classes / gender.

Geographical distribution

It is spoken in the basin of Upper Rubas-nir and Upper Chirakh-nir.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Tabasaran^[2]

		Labial	Dental		Post-alveolar		Velar	Uvular	Epiglottal	Glottal
			plain	sibilant	plain	labial
Nasal		m	n
Plosive/ Affricate	voiced	b	d	d͡z	d͡ʒ	d͡ʒʷ	ɡ	ɢ
	voiceless	p	t	t͡s	t͡ʃ	t͡ʃʷ	k	q		ʔ
	fortis	pː	tː	t͡sː	t͡ʃː	t͡ʃʷː	kː	qː
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	t͡sʼ	t͡ʃʼ	t͡ʃʷʼ	kʼ	qʼ
Fricative	voiceless	f		s	ʃ	ʃʷ	x		ʜ
	fortis	fː		sː	ʃː	ʃʷː	xː
	voiced	v		z	ʒ	ʒʷ	ɣ		ʢ	ɦ
Approximant			l		j
Trill			r

The post-alveolar sibilants may be whistled.

Vowels

	Front		Back
	unrounded	rounded
Close	i	y	u
Mid	ɛ
Open	æ		ɑ

Vowel sounds of Tabasaran are [i, y, ɛ, æ, ɑ, u].

Writing system

Cyrillic (19th century)

Peter von Uslar's Tabasaran alphabet

Peter von Uslar devised Cyrillic-based orthographies for many Caucasian languages, including Tabasaran.^[3]

Latin (1931–1938)

From 1931 to 1938, the Latin alphabet was used as a base for the Tabasaran writing system. The first book was published in 1932.^[4]

Initially, the alphabet took the following form:^[5]

a, b, c, cc, cь, ç, çь, d, e, ә, f, g, ƣ, h, i, j, k, kk, ⱪ, l, m, n, u, p, pp, ᶈ, q, ꝗ, r, s, ꟍ, ꟍꟍ, ş, şь, t, tt, t̨, y, v, x, ҳ, ӿ, z, ⱬ, zz, ƶ, ƶƶ, ƶь, '

Soon after, capital letters and the letters O o and were introduced. The alphabet then took the following form:^[6]

A a	B b	C c	Cь cь	Ç ç	Çь çь	D d	E e	Ә ә	F f	G g
Ƣ ƣ	H h	I i	J j	K k	Ⱪ ⱪ	L l	M m	N n	O o	P p
ᶈ	Q q	Ꝗ ꝗ	R r	S s	Ꟍ ꟍ	Ş ş	Şь şь	T t		U u
V v	X x	Ҳ ҳ	Ӿ ӿ	Y y	Z z	Ⱬ ⱬ	Ƶ ƶ		Ƶь ƶь	'

Cyrillic (1938–present)

Tabasaran has been written using Cyrillic since 1938.^[7]

Letter	IPA
А а	/ɑ/
Аь аь	/æ/
Б б	/b/
В в	/v/
Г г	/ɡ/
Гг гг	/ɣ/
Гъ гъ	/ʕ/
Гь гь	/h/
Д д	/d/
Е е	/ɛ/, /jɛ/
Ё ё	/jo/
Ж ж	/ʒ/, /dʒ/
Жв жв	/ʒʷ/
З з	/z/, /dz/
И и	/i/
Й й	/j/
К к	/kʰ/
Кк кк	/kː/
Къ къ	/qːʰ/
Кь кь	/qʼ/
Кӏ кӏ	/kʼ/
Л л	/l/
М м	/m/
Н н	/n/
О о	/o/
П п	/pʰ/
ПП пп	/pː/
Пӏ пӏ	/pʼ/
Р р	/r/
С с	/s/
Т т	/tʰ/
Тт тт	/tː/
Тӏ тӏ	/tʼ/
У у	/u/
Уь уь	/y/
Ф ф	/f/
Х х	/ɦ/
Хъ хъ	/qʰ/
Хь хь	/x/
Ц ц	/tsʰ/
Цц цц	/tsːʰ/
Цӏ цӏ	/tsʼ/
Ч ч	/tʃʰ/
Чв чв	/tʃʷʰ/
Чч чч	/tʃːʰ/
Чӏ чӏ	/tʃʼ/
Ш ш	/ʃ/
Шв шв	/ʃʷ/
Щ щ	/ɕ/
Ъ ъ	/ʔ/
Ы ы	/ɨ/
Ь ь
Э э	/ɛ/
Ю ю	/y/, /ju/
Я я	/æ/, /jɑ/

Note: The letters indicated in orange are encountered only in loanwords from Russian.

Grammar

It is highly probable that Tabasaran is an active language of the fluid-S type.

Cases

Tabasaran was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the largest case system in the world, with 48. Hjelmslev (1935) claimed that Tabasaran had the 'empirical maximum' number of cases, with 52 (though 2 occur only on adjectives). However, such claims are based on a sloppy analysis of 'case', and other languages such as Tsez would have even larger counts under such definitions. Comrie & Polinsky (1998) analyze the system as having 14 case morphemes (counting the absolutive with no suffix) in southern dialects (including the standard language) and 15 in northern dialects.^[8][9] These include 4 core/argument cases (absolutive, ergative, genitive -n and dative -z). The absolutive is the citation form. The ergative, which may be irregular but typically ends in -i, functions as the stem for all other cases. There are also 7 or 8 locative case suffixes: -ʔ 'in', -xy 'at', -h 'near / in front' (neutralized with 'at' in the south), -ʔin 'on' (horizontal), -k 'on' (vertical), -kk 'under', -q 'behind' and -ghy 'among'. The locative cases may take an additional suffix, allative -na or ablative -an, for 21 or 24 combinations. All of these, as well as the dative, can take a further suffix -di to mark the location as less specific, for 47 (southern) to 53 (northern) combinations of case suffixes.

Samples

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

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

Uwu fudžuwa? "Уву фужува?" — "Who are you?"

Fici wuna? "Фици вуна?" — "How are you?"

Zakur ʕürza. "Закур гъюрза." — "I'll come tomorrow."

Uzu kana qheza. "Узу кана хъэза." — "I'll be back."