Akhvakh language

Akhvakh
	Ашвaлъи мицIи
Native to	North Caucasus, Azerbaijan
Region	Southern Dagestan, northern Azerbaijan
Ethnicity	Akhvakh
Native speakers	13,000 in Dagestan[1]
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Avar–Andic Andic Akhvakh–Tindi Akhvakh; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	akv
Glottolog	akhv1239
ELP	Akhvakh[2]

The Akhvakh language (also spelled Axvax, Akhwakh) is a Northeast Caucasian language from the Avar–Andic branch. Ethnologue lists 6500 speakers,[3] but Magomedova and Abulaeva (2007) list 20,000 speakers of the language. Akhvakh has several dialects, though sources do not agree on the number. Ethnologue lists Kaxib, Northern Akhvakh and Southern Akhvakh (which can be further subdivided into the Tlyanub and Tsegob subdialects[4]). Creissels (2010) lists Northern Akhvakh and three dialects of Southern Akhvakh (Cegob, Tljanub, and Ratlub).

A few publications have been made in the Akhvakh language, but for the most part speakers of Akhvakh have adopted Avar as their literary language.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Akhvakh[5]
		Labial	Dental		Alveolar				Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Pharyngeal	Glottal
			Dental		central		lateral			Velar		Uvular
			lenis	fortis	lenis	fortis	lenis	fortis		lenis	fortis	lenis	fortis
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	voiced	b	d							ɡ
	voiceless	p	t							k	kː				ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ							kʼ	kːʼ
Affricate	voiced				d͡ʒ
	voiceless		t͡s	t͡sː	t͡ʃ	t͡ʃː	t͡ɬ	t͡ɬː				q͡χ	q͡χː
	ejective		t͡sʼ	t͡sːʼ	t͡ʃʼ	t͡ʃːʼ	t͡ɬʼ	t͡ɬːʼ				q͡χʼ	q͡χːʼ
Fricative	voiceless		s	sː	ʃ	ʃː	ɬ	ɬː	ç	x	xː			ħ/ʜ ^[1]	h
Fricative	voiced	v	z		ʒ					ɣ				ʕ/ʢ ^[1]
Trill					r
Approximant							l		j

As with Avar, there are competing analyses of the distinction transcribed in the table with the length sign ⟨ː⟩. Length is part of the distinction, but so is articulatory strength, so they have been analyzed as fortis and lenis. The fortis affricates are long in the fricative part of the contour, e.g. [tsː] (tss), not in the stop part as in geminate affricates in languages such as Japanese and Italian [tːs] (tts). Laver (1994) analyzes e.g. t͡ɬː as a two-segment affricate–fricative sequence /t͡ɬɬ/ (/t^ɬɬ/).[6]

Grammar

Agreement classes

Akhvakh has three agreement classes. In the singular, these are human masculine, human feminine, and non-human. In the plural, there are only two—human plural and non-human plural. Akhvakh verbs agree with the absolutive argument (subject of an intransitive or object of a transitive.)

Consider the following examples, which show the general principles. In the first example, the intransitive verb 'run' shows feminine agreement because its subject, 'girl', is feminine. In the second example, the transitive verb 'cook' shows neuter agreement because its object, 'meat', is neuter. (Creissels 2010:114)

Jaše	q:'eɬ:-a	j-et-e	j-i:ni
girl	home-lative	fem-run-converb:fem	fem-go:imperfective
'The girl ran home.'

Ak:'o-de	riɬ:'i	b-iž-e	q:'-e:ni.
wife-ergative	meat	neut-eat-converb:neut	eat-imperfective
'The wife cooked the meat and ate it.'

Note that in the second example, 'wife' is in the ergative case and appears to be the subject of both the verbs 'cook' and 'eat', but neither verb shows feminine agreement.

Cases

Akhvakh has an ergative-absolutive case-marking system. As the following examples (repeated from above) show, the transitive subject has the ergative case, while an intransitive subject has absolutive case. Absolutive case is not overtly marked by a suffix, but the noun phrase with absolutive case controls agreement on the verb:

Jaše	q:'eɬ:-a	j-et-e	j-i:ni
girl	home-lative	fem-run-converb:fem	fem-go:imperfective
'The girl ran home.'

Ak:'o-de	riɬ:'i	b-iž-e	q:'-e:ni.
wife-ergative	meat	neut-eat-converb:neut	eat-imperfective
'The wife cooked the meat and ate it.'

In addition to the ergative and absolutive cases, Akhvakh has eighteen other cases, for a total of twenty cases (Creissels 2010:108-9). The additional cases are

dative
genitive
comitative
purposive
fifteen spatial cases, arrayed in five series of three.

Notes

Akhvakh at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Endangered Languages Project data for Akhvakh.
Ethnologue entry for Akhvakh, which also mentions its divergent dialects
The peoples of the Red Book: Akhvakhs
Consonant Systems of the North-East Caucasian Languages on TITUS DIDACTICA
Laver (1994) Principles of Phonetics p. 371.

References

Creissels, Denis. 2009. Participles and Finiteness: The Case of Akhvakh. Linguistic Discovery, vol 7:1. http://journals.dartmouth.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Journals.woa/2/xmlpage/1/article/334.
Creissels, Denis. 2010. Specialized converbs and adverbial subordination in Axaxdərə Akhvakh. In Clause linking and clause hierarchy: Syntax and pragmatics, ed. by Isabelle Bril. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 105–142.
Magomedova, Patimat and Abdulaeva, Indira. 2007. Axkaxsko-russkij slovar'. Maxačkala: Dagestanskij Naučnyj Centr Rossiskoj Akademii Nauk.

External links

The dictionary definition of Akhvakh at Wiktionary

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[e18-1] Akhvakh at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[ELP1-2] Endangered Languages Project data for Akhvakh.

[Ethnologue-3] Ethnologue entry for Akhvakh, which also mentions its divergent dialects

[Redbook-4] The peoples of the Red Book: Akhvakhs

[TITUS-5] Consonant Systems of the North-East Caucasian Languages on TITUS DIDACTICA

[6] Laver (1994) Principles of Phonetics p. 371.