Tabasaran (also written Tabassaran) is a

Northeast Caucasian language The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or ''Vainakh-Daghestani'', is a language family, family of languages spoken in the Republics of Russia, Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and ...

of the

Lezgic The Lezgic languages are one of seven branches of the Northeast Caucasian languages, Northeast Caucasian language family. Lezgian language, Lezgian are literary languages aside from being extant (currently spoken). Classification * Peripheral: ...

branch. It is spoken by the

Tabasaran people Tabasarans are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group native predominantly to southern part of the North Caucasian Republic of Dagestan. Their population in Russia is about 150,000. They speak the Tabasaran language. They are mainly Sunni Muslims. ...

in the southern part of the

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n 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 C ...

. 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 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 class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some ...

es (also dubbed with the term "

grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...

"), whereas Southern Tabasaran lacks noun classes.

Geographical distribution

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

Phonology

Consonants

The post-alveolar sibilants may be whistled.

Vowels

Vowel sounds of Tabasaran are , y, ɛ, æ, ɑ, u

Writing system

Tabasaran is written using

Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

since 1938 (from 1928 to 1938 the Latin alphabet was used as a base for the Tabasaran writing system). Note: The letters indicated in orange are encountered only in loanwords from

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

Grammar

It is highly probable that Tabasaran is an

active language Active may refer to: Music * ''Active'' (album), a 1992 album by Casiopea * Active Records, a record label Ships * ''Active'' (ship), several commercial ships by that name * HMS ''Active'', the name of various ships of the British Royal ...

of the fluid-S type. Tabasaran was listed in the ''

Guinness Book of World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'' 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.. See also 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: -ɂ 'in', -xy 'at', -h 'near / in front' (neutralized with 'at' in the south), -ɂin 'on' (horizontal), -k 'on' (vertical), -kk 'under', -q 'behind' and '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."

References

*Chanmagomedov, B.G.-K. & K.T. Šalbuzov, ''Tabasaransko-russkij slovarʼ'', Moskva: Ilim, 2001, ncludes outline of Tabasaran grammar (Grammatičeskij očerk tabasaranskogo jazyka) by K.K. Kurbanov (p. 395-476)*Alekseev, Mixail E. and Sabrina X. Shixalieva. 2003. ''Tabasaranskij Jazyk''. Moskva: Nauka.

External links

Tabasaran dictionary online from IDS
(select simple or advanced browsing)
Entry in the Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire

Description at Languages of the World

Entry at the Rosetta Project

Tabasaran basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tabasaran Language Agglutinative languages Lezgian languages Northeast Caucasian languages Languages of Russia Dagestan