Khinalug (also spelled Khinalig, Khinalugi, Xinalug(h), Xinaliq or Khinalugh) is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by about 3,000 people in the villages of Khinalug and Gülüstan,

Quba Quba () is a city and the administrative centre of the Quba District (Azerbaijan), Quba District of Azerbaijan. The city lies on the north-eastern slopes of Mount Shahdagh, Shahdag mountain, at an altitude of 600 metres above sea level, on the ...

in the mountains of

Quba Rayon Quba District (; ) is one of the 66 Administrative divisions of Azerbaijan, districts of Azerbaijan. Located in the northeast of the country, it belongs to the Guba-Khachmaz Economic Region. The district borders the districts of Qusar District, ...

, northern

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

. It may either belong to the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family, or it may form its own independent branch within that family.Family tree of Northeast Caucasian languages at Ethnologue
/ref> Khinalug is

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

, and classified as "severely endangered" by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

's ''

Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger The UNESCO ''Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger'' was an online publication containing a comprehensive list of the world's endangered languages. It originally replaced the ''Red Book of Endangered Languages'' as a title in print after ...

''.

History

Khinalug is the language of the village Khinalug in the

district of Azerbaijan. It has been tentatively classified by previous researchers as a member of the Lezgic branch of the

Northeast Caucasian languages The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or Vainakh-Daghestani, or sometimes Caspian languages (from the Caspian Sea, in contrast to ''Pontic languages'' for the Northwest Caucasian languages), is a langu ...

. Although Khinalug is the official language of the village, it is mostly spoken by villagers in informal circumstances, while the national language Azerbaijani is used formally for educational purposes and to communicate with non-Khinalug speakers. Khinalug is considered to be a threatened language. In recent years, the road leading to the villages where it is spoken has fallen into disrepair, leaving the area mostly isolated.

Phonology

The Khinalug language previously had its own script. Alexander Kibrik and a team of 13 linguists from

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

visited the village in 2005. In 2007 they developed a Latin orthography for Khinalug, in collaboration with local school teachers in the village. It is presented in angle brackets on the tables below.

Consonants

¹ The cedilla in the orthography is in the middle of the bottom of the , as is typical of Russian linguistics. ² Kh and gh are rare. ³ Kx is very rare. ⁴ The pharyngeal sounds mostly appear in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

Vowels

Khinalug has nine vowels and four

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

s. Diphthongs include: u i e a

Alphabet

The version below was created by scientists from Frankfurt University in 2013, following research into Khinalug phonology by Moscow specialists. Kibrik's alphabet from above is presented again, this time in table form.

Vocabulary

The following words were phonetically transcribed from Khinalug: Note: ı is roughly pronounced as the ''e'' in "fall''e''n". u is roughly pronounced as the ''ou'' in "c''ou''p".

Audio samples

References

External links

* Appendix:Cyrillic script
Khinalug basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical DatabaseKhinalug tongue&culture
*
Extended Latin: KhinalugKhvisiashvili's dissertation on DOBES (registration needed)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khinalug Language Northeast Caucasian languages Languages of Azerbaijan Endangered Caucasian languages Quba District (Azerbaijan)