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, ...
of
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 ...
by 6,000 people in 1975. Its dialects are Kryts, Jek, Khaput, , and Alyk, which are all quite distinct to the point of only partial
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelli ...
, therefore they could also be considered separate languages in a
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
.
Kryts 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 ...
, 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 ...
''.
Phonology
Consonants
* /ʁ/ may also be realized as �or ː in complementary distribution.
* Sounds /t͡s, d͡z/ only occur in other dialects of the language.
* /h/ may vary from a glottal sound to an epiglottal fricative /ʜ/.
Vowels
* /i/ can be heard as � in free variation
* The four vowels may also be pharyngealized as /iˤ, uˤ, eˤ, aˤ/.
Orthography
In 2020, a dictionary was published in the Khaput variety, using the Latin script.