Lak (, ) 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 country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n autonomous republic of

Dagestan Dagestan ( ; ; ), officially the Republic of Dagestan, is a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, along the Caspian Sea. It is located north of the Greater Caucasus, and is a part of the North Caucasian Fede ...

, 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 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 ...

s from

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 ...

, Turkish, Persian, and Russian. Ever since

was part of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

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. This city should not be confused with the Kumyk ethnic group, a

Turkic people Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West Asia, West, Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members ...

also present in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

. 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

According to Catford (1977), some dialects have /t͡p, d͡b, t͡pʼ/.

Vowels

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

Writing systems

The Lak language was written using the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...

until 1928. Afterwards it was written with a

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

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

Cyrillic The Cyrillic 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 countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

. 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

Writing Comparison Table

Compiled according to,

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 (disambiguation), a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of ...

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.

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)