Everything about Tsakhur Language totally explained
Tsakhur is a language spoken by the
Tsakhurs, an ethnic group, which populates northern
Azerbaijan and southwestern
Dagestan (
Russia). The word
Tsakhur derives from the name of a Dagestani village where speakers of this language make up the majority.
Classification
Tsakhur belongs to the
Lezgic group of the
Northeast Caucasian (Dagestan) language family. Tsakhurs call their language
C'aiχna miz.
History
The first written documentation of Tsakhur dates back to
1895 and is attributed to
Roderich von Erckert. The first description of Tsakhur grammar was published by
Adolf Dirr in
1913.
In the 1930s, a
literary form of Tsakhur was developed. Starting from
1934, the language was taught in
primary schools in
Azerbaijan and
Dagestan. In
1938, the use of literary Tsakhur in Azerbaijan was discontinued but regained its status in
1989.
Geographic distribution
Tsakhur is spoken mostly in rural areas of Azerbaijan's
Zagatala and
Gakh rayons, as well as mountainous parts of Dagestan's Rutul region. There are 15,900 Tsakhurs in Azerbaijan (
1999 census) and 10,400 in Russia (
2002 census). In
1989, 93% of them reported Tsakhur as their first language.
Official status
In Azerbaijan and Russia, Tsakhur is taught as a subject in primary schools (grades 1 to 4) in Tsakhur-populated regions. Newspapers and radio broadcast in Tsakhur are also available. However the language doesn't have an official status.
Related languages
Among the languages of the Lezgic group,
Rutul appears to be the closest one to Tsakhur. Other than these two, there are eight more languages in the Lezgic group, namely:
Lezgian,
Tabasaran,
Aghul,
Budugh,
Kryts,
Khinalugh,
Udi and
Archi.
Grammar
Similar to many Northeast Caucasian languages, Tsakhur is known for its complex phonology and a large amount of vowel phonemes (including 7 simple, 5
pharyngealized and 3
umlauted vowels). Its first in-depth phonological description was provided by
Nikolai Trubetskoi in
1931. Tsakhur has 18
grammatical cases and has retained
suffixaufnahme. Verbs may have singular and plural forms, and 7
grammatical moods. The tense system is complex. In contrast to the related languages, Tsakhur sentences can be formed by
affective construction.
Dialects
The two major dialects of the Tsakhur language are Tsakh and Gelmets.
[Further Information]
Get more info on 'Tsakhur Language'.
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