Chirag | |
---|---|
хьугъул ĥuġul[citation needed] | |
Native to | North Caucasus |
Region | Agulsky District, Dagestan |
Native speakers | 2000 (2021)[1] |
Northeast Caucasian
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | chir1284 |
Chirag (Chirag: xarʁnilla kub[2]) is a language in the Dargin dialect continuum spoken in Dagestan, Russia. It is often considered a divergent dialect of Dargwa.[3] Ethnologue lists it under the dialects of Dargwa but recognizes that it may be a separate language.[4]
Based on lexical similarity, Chirag is usually classified as a separate language from other varieties of Dargwa.[5] It has 67% lexical similarity with the North-Central group, 77.6% with the South group, and 69% with Kaitag; within the South group, it has 84% lexical similarity with Qunqi Amuq.[5]
Chirag has four vowels: /i/, /e/, /u/, and /a/.[6]
In Chirag, stressed syllables are specified for tone.[7]
Chirag has some phonological processes that pertain to specific morphological elements. The plural suffix -e attracts stress and induces vowel deletion on the final syllable of disyllabic nouns (e.g., qisqan 'spider', qisqne 'spiders').[8] Verbal prefixes have optional front/back vowel harmony.[8]
Chirag is head-final, has fairly flexible word order and is rich with inflectional morphology.[9] It has ergative–absolutive alignment in its case marking; the subject of a transitive verb is overtly marked with ergative case, and the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb are unmarked:[1][9]
ʡale
Ali(ABS)
šːa
home.LOC
w-ačʼ-ib.
M.SG-come:PFV-AOR.3
Ali came home.
ʡali-le
Ali-ERG
qa̰r-be
apple-PL(ABS)
d-iʡ-un.
N.PL-steal:PFV-AOR.3
Ali stole apples.
There are efforts to enable automated translation of text from English to Chirag.[10]