Lak (лакку маз, ''lakːu maz'') is a Northeast Caucasian language forming its own branch within this family. It is the language of the Lak people from the

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

n autonomous republic of

Dagestan Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, links=yes), officially the Republic of Dagestan (russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respúblika Dagestán, links=no), is a republic of Russia situated in the North Ca ...

, where it is one of six standardized languages. It is spoken by about 157,000 people.

History

In 1864 Russian ethnographer and linguist P. K. Uslar wrote: "Kazikumukh grammar or as I called it for short in the native language, the Lak grammar, Lakku maz, the Lak language, is ready".P. K. Uslar. Этнография Кавказа thnography of the Caucasus Языкознание inguistics 4. Лакский язык he Lak language Tbilisi, 1890. In 1890, P. K. Uslar compiled a textbook on Lak grammar titled ''The Lak Language''. It stated under the title "Lak alphabet": "The proposed alphabet is written for people who name themselves collectively Lak, genitive Lakral. From among these people each one is named separately Lakkuchu 'Lakian man', the woman – Lakkusharssa 'Lakian woman'. Their homeland they name Lakral kIanu – 'Lak place'." Lak has throughout the centuries adopted a number of

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...

s from

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

, Turkish, Persian, and Russian. Ever since

was part of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

and later

, the largest portion of loanwords have come from Russian, especially political and technical vocabulary. There is a newspaper and broadcasting station in Lak. In accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Dagestan of 1994, Lak was named as the state language along with Russian and some other major languages spoken in Dagestan (about 20 local languages are unwritten and have no official status). Lak is used as a teaching tool in elementary school and taught as a subject in secondary schools, vocational schools and universities. There is a Lak newspaper, "Ilchi". The standard Lak language is based on the dialect of the city of

Kumukh Kumukh (russian: Кумух; lbe, Гъумук) aka Gazi Kumukh is a village and the administrative center of Laksky District in Dagestan. It is located on the banks of the Kazikumukh Koysu, a branch of the Sulak River. Etymology Laks use the n ...

. This city should not be confused with the Kumyk ethnic group, a Turkic people also present in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...

. Lak has the following dialects: Kumukh, Vitskhi, Arakul, Balkhar, Shadni, Shalib, Vikhli, Kuli, and Kaya. Initially Lak by lexicon was found to be close to Dargin and the two were often combined in one Lak–Dargin subgroup of Dagestani languages. However, further research has led linguists to conclude that this association was insufficient.

Phonology

Consonants

*The consonants in orange are given by Schulze, but not by TITUS. The consonant /ʡ/ (grey) is given by TITUS, but not by Schulze. *The sound transcribed here as a

glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...

is named rather ambiguously a "glottalic laryngeal" by both sources.

Vowels

Five vowels are presented as /a, e, i, o, u/. Three vowels /i, a, u/ are also pharyngealized as /iˤ, aˤ, uˤ/, and also have fronted allophones of , æ, œ

Grammar

Lak is one of the few North East Caucasian languages with verbal

agreement Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus, a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of law ** Meeting ...

for person. It generally only distinguishes between speech-act participants and non-speech-act participants. In other words, the first- and second-person agreement markers are the same.Helmbrecht, J. (1996). "The Syntax of Personal Agreement in East Caucasian Languages". ''Sprachtypol. Univ. Frsch. (STUF)'' 49:127–48. Cited in Bhat, D.N.S. 2004. ''Pronouns''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 26. The free pronouns of Lak do distinguish first and second person.

Writing systems

The Lak language was written using the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and th ...

until 1928. Afterwards it was written with a

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

for ten years, and since 1938 it has been written in

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

. The Lak alphabet in Cyrillic initially included 48 letters and later 54 letters with double letters as "тт", "пп", "чч", "хьхь", etc.: Lak alphabet 1928

References

External links

Lak Grammar by Wolfgang SchulzeTransliteration of LakLak House – Lak culture and society siteLak words
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lak Language Northeast Caucasian languages Languages of Russia Vulnerable languages Dagestan Laks (Caucasus)