Chirag language
Northeast Caucasian language or dialect in Dagestan, Russia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chirag (Chirag: хьаргънилла, xarʁnilla kub[2]) is a language in the Dargin dialect continuum spoken in Dagestan, Russia. It is spoken around the village of Chirag, but some speakers have moved to Kaspiysk. Chirag is often considered a divergent dialect of Dargwa,[3] despite not being mutually intelligible with literary Dargwa.[4] Ethnologue lists it under the dialects of Dargwa but recognizes that it may be a separate language.[5]
_2021.png)
[xuʁul]
| Chirag | |
|---|---|
| хьаргънилла, xarʁnilla kub хьугъул мец, ĥuġul | |
| Pronunciation | [xarʁnilla kub] [xuʁul] |
| Native to | North Caucasus |
| Region | Agulsky District, Dagestan |
| Ethnicity | 2,300 Chirag Dargins (2019–2024) |
Native speakers | 2,000 (2021)[1] |
Northeast Caucasian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
dar-chi | |
| Glottolog | chir1284 |
Chirag | |
Classification
Based on lexical similarity, Chirag is usually classified as a separate language from other varieties of Dargwa.[6] It has 67% lexical similarity with the North-Central group, 77.6% with the South group, and 69% with Kaitag; within the South group, it has 84% lexical similarity with Qunqi Amuq.[6] It was apparently the first language to diverge from Proto-Dargwa.[4]
Phonology
Vowels
Chirag has four vowels: /i/, /e/, /u/, and /a/,[7] along with two "epiglottalized" vowels, /iˁ/ and /aˁ/. Vowel length also exists for most vowels.[4]
Prosody
In Chirag, stressed syllables are specified for tone.[8]
Morphophonology
Chirag has some phonological processes that pertain to specific morphological elements. The plural suffix -e attracts stress and induces vowel deletion on the final syllable of disyllabic nouns (e.g., qisqan 'spider', qisqne 'spiders').[9] Verbal prefixes have optional front/back vowel harmony.[9]
Phonotactics
The permitted syllable structures are CV, CVC, and CVRT.[4]
Grammar
Chirag is head-final, has fairly flexible word order and is rich with inflectional morphology.[10] It has ergative–absolutive alignment in its case marking; the subject of a transitive verb is overtly marked with ergative case, and the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb are unmarked:[1][10]
ʡale
Ali(ABS)
šːa
home.LOC
w-ačʼ-ib.
M.SG-come:PFV-AOR.3
Ali came home.
ʡali-le
Ali-ERG
qa̰r-be
apple-PL(ABS)
d-iʡ-un.
N.PL-steal:PFV-AOR.3
Ali stole apples.
There are three noun classes, being male, female, and neuter. In the plural form, however, the male and female classes are identical, thus leading to a two-way human-nonhuman opposition.[11]
Lexicon
Usage
There are efforts to enable automated translation of text from English to Chirag.[12]