Andi is a Northeast Caucasian language belonging to the Avar–Andic branch spoken by about 5,800 ethnic Andi (2010) in the Botlikh region 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 ...

. The language is spoken in the villages Andi (along the river Andi-Koisu),The peoples of the Red Book: Akhvakhs
/ref> Gunkha, Gagatl, Ashali,

Rikvani Tlokh (russian: Тлох; av, Кьохъ) is a rural locality (a selo) in Botlikhsky District, Republic of Dagestan, Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country s ...

, Chanko, Zilo, and

Kvanxidatl Kvanxidatl (russian: Кванхидатли; av, Кванхидалъ) is a small village in the Botlikh district in Dagestan Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, links=yes), officially the Republic of Dagestan (rus ...

. There are four main dialects, Munin,

, and Gagatl, which appear quite divergent. However, the dialects can be said to vary between villages: the "upper-group" contains Andi, Gagatl, Rikvani, and Zilo (where Andi and Zilo are considered their own dialects), whereas the "lower-group" contains Munin and Kvanxidatl. The upper-group lacks the affricate sound кьI. Although Andi is usually non written, there are attempts to write the language using Russian Cyrillic script. Speakers generally use Avar or Russian as their literary language(s). Andi has 7 different series of localization: the meaning "inside" changes by number (singular -ла/-а, plural -хъи: гьакъу-ла 'in a home', гьакъоба-хъи 'in houses'). Number categories are expressed through

ablaut In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German '' Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and i ...

(имуво воцци в-усон 'The father found the brother', but имуво воццул в-осон 'The father found the brothers'). In the village Andi, there is a difference between the speech of men and women; a man will say, for example, дин meaning 'I', мин meaning 'you', гьекIа 'person', but a woman will say ден 'I', мен 'you', гьекIва 'person'.

Phonology

Andi has 43 consonants:Consonant Systems of the North-East Caucasian Languages: Andi
/ref> There are five vowels: .

Phonology

References

Further reading