The Dargwa or Dargin language is spoken by the Dargin people

Dargin people

The Dargwa or Dargin people are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group of the Caucasus who live mainly in the Russian republic of Dagestan. They speak the Dargwa language...

 of Dagestan

Dagestan

The Republic of Dagestan is a federal subject of Russia, located in the North Caucasus region. Its capital and the largest city is Makhachkala, located at the center of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea...

. It is the literary and main dialect of the dialect continuum

Dialect continuum

A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...

 constituting the Dargin languages

Dargin languages

The Dargin languages consist of a dialect continuum of Northeast Caucasian languages spoken in southcentral Dagestan. Kajtak, Kubachi, Itsari, and Chirag are often considered dialects of the same Dargin/Dargwa language. The Ethnologue lists these under a common Dargin language, but also states that...

. The four other languages in this dialect continuum (Kajtak

Kajtak language

Kajtak is a language from the Dargin dialect continuum spoken in Dagestan, Russia. It is often considered a divergent dialect of Dargwa. The Ethnologue lists it under the dialects of Dargwa, but recognizes that it may be a separate language....

, Kubachi

Kubachi language

Kubachi is a language from the Dargin dialect continuum spoken in Dagestan, Russia. It is often considered a divergent dialect of Dargwa...

, Itsari

Itsari language

Itsari is a language from the Dargin dialect continuum spoken in Dagestan, Russia spoken in the village Icari by about 2,000 people. It is often considered a divergent dialect of Dargwa. The Ethnologue lists it under the dialects of Dargwa, but recognizes that it may be a separate language.-Further...

, and Chirag

Chirag language

Chirag is a language from the Dargin dialect continuum spoken in Dagestan, Russia. It is often considered a divergent dialect of Dargwa. The Ethnologue lists it under the dialects of Dargwa, but recognizes that it may be a separate language....

) are often considered variants of Dargwa. Ethnologue

Ethnologue

Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...

 lists these under Dargwa, but recognizes that these may be different languages. Its people are Sunni Muslims. Dargwa uses a modified version of the Cyrillic

Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...

 alphabet

Alphabet

An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...

.

As per the 2002 Census

Russian Census (2002)

Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...

, there are 429,347 speakers of Dargwa proper in Dagestan, 7,188 in neighbouring Kalmykia

Kalmykia

The Republic of Kalmykia is a federal subject of Russia . Population: It is the only Buddhist region in Europe. It has also become well-known as an international chess mecca because its former President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is the head of the International Chess Federation .-Geography:*Area:...

, 1,620 in Khantia-Mansia, 680 in Chechnya

Chechnya

The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

, and hundreds more in other parts of Russia. Figures for the Lakh dialect are 142,523 in Dagestan, 1,504 in Kabardino-Balkaria

Kabardino-Balkaria

The Kabardino-Balkar Republic , or Kabardino-Balkaria , is a federal subject of Russia located in the North Caucasus. Population: -Geography:The republic is situated in the North Caucasus mountains, with plains in the northern part....

, 708 in Khantia-Mansia.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Dargwa

		Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...	Dental	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....	Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...	Epi- glottal Epiglottal consonant An epiglottal consonant is a consonant that is articulated with the aryepiglottic folds against the epiglottis. They are occasionally called aryepiglottal consonants.-Epiglottal consonants in the IPA:...	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...		m	n
Plosive	voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...		d			ɡ	ɢ	ʡ
	voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...	p	t			k	q
	ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants...	pʼ	tʼ			kʼ	qʼ	ʡʼ
Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...	voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...		d͡z	d͡ʒ
	voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...		t͡s	t͡ʃ
	ejective		t͡sʼ	t͡ʃʼ
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...	voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...	f	s	ʃ	ç	x
	voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...	v	z	ʒ		ɣ	ʁ		ɦ
Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....				r
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...			l		j

• Note that the source is rather ambiguous in its using the term laryngeal
  Laryngeal consonant
  A laryngeal consonant is generally synonymous with a glottal consonant; that is, with , , and .Besides the glottis , the larynx includes the epiglottis and aryepiglottic folds, though epiglottal and aryepiglottal consonants are usually counted as radical rather than as laryngeal...
  
   for a row of radical consonant
  Radical consonant
  Radical consonants are those consonants articulated with the root of the tongue in the throat. This includes the pharyngeal, epiglottal, and epiglotto-pharyngeal places of articulation, though technically epiglottal consonants take place in the larynx....
  
  s that includes both a voiced and a glottalic (i.e. ejective) plosive. A voiced glottal plosive
  Glottal stop
  The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
  
   canʼt be made, as the glottis
  Glottis
  The glottis is defined as the combination of the vocal folds and the space in between the folds .-Function:...
  
   needs to be closed. Pending clarification, this row has been transcripted here as the epiglottal
  Epiglottal consonant
  An epiglottal consonant is a consonant that is articulated with the aryepiglottic folds against the epiglottis. They are occasionally called aryepiglottal consonants.-Epiglottal consonants in the IPA:...
  
   and glottal
  Glottal consonant
  Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
  
   columns.

External links

• Appendix:Cyrillic script
• Dargin language