User:Rebecca5802/Tabasaran language

Tabasaran (also known as Ghumghum, Tabasarantsy, or Tabassaran) is a language spoken in the Northeast Caucasians. It is spoken by the Tabasaran people in the southern most part of Russia, Azerbaijan and the Republic of Dagestan. It is also one of the official languages in The Republic of Dagestan. The Republic of Dagestan has one of the most beautiful sights in the world, ranging from mountains to bright blue water. Right now, there are around 94,000 ethnic speakers world wide. There are two primary dialects of the Tabasaran language, they are the North Khanag and South Tabasaran. It is written using Cryllic. The Tabasaran language has the largest case system in the world with 48. It is endangered. Almost everyone living in The Republic of Dagestan speak Russian, however, older generations are trying to keep the Tabasaran language alive. Tabasaran is no longer used in in formal institutions or schools, however, children still learn in in their homes. In fact, schools are very much structured like schooling in Russia. They learn about Russia's history, without the use of the Tabasaran language. The Tabasaran language and the history of its people has a great deal of history. They have been under rule of multiple dynasties, and now is under Russia's rule. Since it has been under Russia's rule for over one hundred years, a lot of Russia's vocabulary was adopted into the Tabassaran language. The alphabet of both languages also look almost identical. The Tabasaran culture is known to be very welcoming.

History
Tabasaran (also written Tabassaran) is a Northeast Caucasian language of the Lezgic branch. It is spoken by the Tabasaran people in the southern part of the Russian Republic of Dagestan. There is a lot of evidence hinting towards that the homeland of the Tabasaran people was originally part of Caucasian Armenia. One of the first references to the Tabasaran people is in one of the writings of an Armenian author named Fawstos Buzand in the fifth century. He mentions an independent army of "Tabaspors." Armenian and Albanian sources hint that after Caucasian Armenia fell, Tabasaran existed as an independent region near the great pass at Derbent on the Caspian Shore. They experienced multiple invasions. They fought the Huns, Sassanid Persians, Khazars, Arabs, Timur and the Mongols. In 1813, the Tabasarans went under Russian rule. There are two main dialects: North (Khanag) and South Tabasaran. It has a literary language based on the Southern dialect, one of the official languages of Dagestan.

The majority of the Tabasaran people are Sunni Muslims. They began converting to Islam when the first Arab-Muslim conquerers arrived in the southern part of Dagestan in the seventh century. Almost everyone among the Tabasaran people were converted by the eleventh and twelfth century. In the 1920's, Islam was forcibly abolished by the Russian people in the Soviet Union, so the Tabasaran people tried to save their language and their society. Most Tabasaran people know Russian fluently, but they also keep the Tabasaran language alive. The older generations help bring up children and younger generations by teaching them the importance of their culture and to pass it on to their children.

Many visitors to Dagestan mention that the roads are very bad and most of the time there are no signs and the few that they have say nothing. However, the vistas, the mountain views are spectacular and the people of Dagestan are very hospitable and welcoming people. When you visit them, they serve many dishes and they lay it all out on the floor and sit on the floor.

One of the most famous people coming from the Republic of Dagestan is Khabib Nurmagomedov. He was born in the village of Sildi in the Tsumadinsky District of the Dagestan. Khabib Nurmagomedov is a famous mixed martial arts fighter. He is the first person from Dagestan who is a UFC champion.

Geographical distribution
The Tabasaran language is spoken in the Southern part of the Russian Republic of Dagestan. There were 131,785 Tabasarans living in the Russian Federation in 2002. 110,152 of them lived in the Republic of Dagestan. Surrounding them are the Azerbaijanis, Aguls, Lezgins and Kaitag Dargins. In addition to Tabasaran, there are more than fifty other languages spoken in the Republic of Dagestan. Very often, neighboring villages belong to different ethnicities and speak their own languages. However, everyone speaks Russian.

The Climate of the Tabasaran area is warm, and it contains a lot of plants, animals, and water. The Tabasaran people are known for their great work in using the environment around them and being able to use natural resources as the central part of their economy. Most of Dagestan contains mountains. The Caucasian mountains covers the southern region of the Republic of Dagestan. Most of the Tabasaran people are cultivators or horticulturalists. So, they work in fields and grow crops. Depending on the climate of the region, peas, maize, rye, barley, wheat, cotton, tobacco, nuts, and grapes are all grown. In the mountains, most of the people work as livestock breeders.

It is spoken in the basin of Upper Rubas-nir and Upper Chirakh-nir.

Tabasaran is the official language of The Republic Dagestan. Nearly three million people live in The Republic of Dagestan Dagestan. The Republic Dagestan is Russias most southern point and is located north of the Caucasian Mountains and their neighbors in the south is the Republic of Azerbaijan and south west of them is the Republic of Georgia and to the west is Chechnya and to the east of Dagestan is 405 kilometers of the Caspian Sea which is the largest lake in the world. Dagestan itself is a part of The Russian Federation. The Republic of Dagestan's capital is Makhachkala. It is located on the west coast of the Caspian Sea. The people living in Makhachkala are Sunni Muslims. The population of Makhachkala is close to 600,000 as of 2012. The second most important city in the Republic of Dagestan is ancient city of Derbent. The little village of Kubachi is famous for its metal work and they were known for creating sabers in ancient times.

Some of Dagestan's famous natural wonders are the Sulak Canyon which is one hundred meters deeper than the Grand Canyon, the Sarykum Sand-dun which is a humungous mountain of sand that is not located in a desert, caves known as the stone wall and the Khunzakh waterfall. The little village of Kubachi is famous for its metal work and they were known for creating sabers in ancient times. Today, they were famous for their silver and metal.

The Republic of Dagestan is most famous for its delicious dishes. It is known for shashlik which is a roast shishkabab, usually lamb, hinkal which is a pasta dough usually served with some sort of meat, usually lamb, and sauce, and chudu which is a quesadilla like thin dough with meat, cheese, and vegetables.

Consonants[edit]
The post-alveolar sibilants may be whistled.

Vowels[edit]
Vowel sounds of Tabasaran are [i, y, ɛ, æ, ɑ, u].

Writing system[edit]
Tabasaran is written using Cyrillic. They use Cyrillic because of the Russian influence since they have been under their rule for so long.

Note: The letters indicated in orange are encountered only in loanwords from Russian. Some of the sounds in the Tabasaran language do not easily correspond to the Russian language,, but they still use them.

Grammar
It is highly probable that Tabasaran is[clarification needed] an active language of the fluid-S type.

Tabasaran was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the largest case system in the world, with 48. Hjelmslev (1935) claimed that Tabasaran had the 'empirical maximum' number of cases, with 52 (though 2 occur only on adjectives). However, such claims are based on a sloppy analysis of 'case', and other languages such as Tsez would have even larger counts under such definitions. Comrie & Polinsky (1998) analyze the system as having 14 case morphemes (counting the absolutive with no suffix) in southern dialects (including the standard language) and 15 in northern dialects. These include 4 core/argument cases (absolutive, ergative, genitive -n and dative -z). The absolutive is the citation form. The ergative, which may be irregular but typically ends in -i, functions as the stem for all other cases. There are also 7 or 8 locative case suffixes: -ɂ 'in', -xy 'at', -h 'near / in front' (neutralized with 'at' in the south), -ɂin 'on' (horizontal), -k 'on' (vertical), -kk 'under', -q 'behind' and -ghy 'among'. The locative cases may take an additional suffix, allative -na or ablative -an, for 21 or 24 combinations. All of these, as well as the dative, can take a further suffix -di to mark the location as less specific, for 47 (southern) to 53 (northern) combinations of case suffixes.

Tabasaran is an ergative language. The verb system is relatively simple; verbs agree with the subject in number, person and (in North Tabasaran) class. North Tabasaran has two noun classes (also dubbed with the term "grammatical gender"), whereas Southern Tabasaran lacks noun classes.

Cases

The Tabasaran language consists of four core cases; absolutive, ergative, genitive, and dative.The absolutive case is the citation form of a noun. The ergative case is when you attach a suffix to the absolutive, which is usually a single morphine is usually. For example, 'eye' in Tabasaran is 'ul,' the ergative of 'ul' is 'uli.' The rest of the cases attach the ending to the ergative form of a word. For example, the genitive case attaches an '-n' at the end of the word and the dative form attaches a '-z.' The genitive case of 'uli' is ulin', and the dative case of 'ul'i is 'uliz.'

Vocabulary/Lexis
Since the Tabasaran People have been under the rule of Russia for centuries, they adopted a lot of Russian words into the Tabasaran language. Many young and middle aged Dagestanies are very fluent in Russian and call Russian their native language. They may not know Tabasaran at all, or know it very poorly. For many years, the language was not allowed to be spoken by the Russian authorities. However, the efforts to keep the language alive never stopped. Older generations try to teach their children and grandchildren the Tabasaran language in hopes their language will not die.

Here are some of the words in the Tabasaran language: Uwu aldakurawu. "Уву алдакураву." — "You are falling."

Uzuz uwu kkunduzuz. "Узуз уву ккундузуз." — "I love you."

Uwu fudžuwa? "Уву фужува?" — "Who are you?"

Fici wuna? "Фици вуна?" — "How are you?"

Zakur ʕürza. "Закур гъюрза." — "I'll come tomorrow."

Uzu kana qheza. "Узу кана хъэза." — "I'll be back."