Udi language
Encyclopedia
The Udi language, spoken by the Udi people
, is a member of the Lezgic branch
of the Northeast Caucasian language family
. It is believed an earlier form of it was the main language of Caucasian Albania
, which stretched from south Dagestan
to current day Azerbaijan
.
The language is spoken by about 5,000 people in the Azerbaijan
i village of Nij
in Qabala rayon
, in Oghuz rayon
, as well as in parts of the North Caucasus
in Russia
. It is also spoken by ethnic Udis
living in the villages of Debetavan, Bagratashen
, Ptghavan, and Haghtanak
in Tavush Province of northeastern Armenia
and in the village of Zinobiani (Oktomberi) in the Kvareli District of the Kakheti
province of Georgia
.
Udi is endangered
, classified as "severely endangered" by UNESCO
's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
Udi does not have gender, but has declension classes.
Udi people
The Udis are one of the most ancient native peoples of the Caucasus.Currently they live in Azerbaijan, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and many other countries. The total number is about 10,000 people. They speak the Udi language. Among them are distributed also Azeri, Russian,...
, is a member of the Lezgic branch
Lezgic languages
The Lezgic languages are one the seven branches of the Northeast Caucasian language family. Lezgian and Tabasaran are literary languages.-Classification:* Peripheral: Archi – 1200 speakers* Samur ** Eastern Samur*** Udi – 5000 speakers...
of the Northeast Caucasian language family
Northeast Caucasian languages
The Northeast Caucasian languages constitute a language family spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, northern Azerbaijan, and in northeastern Georgia, as well as in diaspora populations in Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East...
. It is believed an earlier form of it was the main language of Caucasian Albania
Caucasian Albania
Albania is a name for the historical region of the eastern Caucasus, that existed on the territory of present-day republic of...
, which stretched from south 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...
to current day Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
.
The language is spoken by about 5,000 people in the Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
i village of Nij
Nij, Azerbaijan
The town of Nij , located forty kilometers south west of Gabala in the Republic of Azerbaijan, is the only place in the world that has had a settlement of Udi people...
in Qabala rayon
Administrative divisions of Azerbaijan
Politically, Azerbaijan is divided into:*59 districts ,*11 cities ,*1 autonomous republic , which itself contains:**7 districts**1 city...
, in Oghuz rayon
Administrative divisions of Azerbaijan
Politically, Azerbaijan is divided into:*59 districts ,*11 cities ,*1 autonomous republic , which itself contains:**7 districts**1 city...
, as well as in parts of the North Caucasus
North Caucasus
The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....
in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. It is also spoken by ethnic Udis
Udi people
The Udis are one of the most ancient native peoples of the Caucasus.Currently they live in Azerbaijan, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and many other countries. The total number is about 10,000 people. They speak the Udi language. Among them are distributed also Azeri, Russian,...
living in the villages of Debetavan, Bagratashen
Bagratashen
Bagratashen is a town in the Tavush Province of Armenia, on the border of the Republic of Georgia. The town was renamed in honor of Bagrat Vardanian , Hero of Socialist Labor.- References :* – World-Gazetteer.com...
, Ptghavan, and Haghtanak
Haghtanak, Tavush
Haghtanak is a town in the Tavush Province of Armenia.- References :* – World-Gazetteer.com...
in Tavush Province of northeastern Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
and in the village of Zinobiani (Oktomberi) in the Kvareli District of the Kakheti
Kakheti
Kakheti is a historical province in Eastern Georgia inhabited by Kakhetians who speak a local dialect of Georgian. It is bordered by the small mountainous province of Tusheti and the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north, Russian Federation to the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the Southeast, and...
province of Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
.
Udi is endangered
Endangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
, classified as "severely endangered" by UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
Morphology
The Udi grammar is agglutinating with a tendency towards a fusional (flectional) type. Udi agglutination is suffixing, infixing,and rare prefixing. Most of Udi grammatical elements are affixes restricted to specific word class, some are clitics. The grammatical word order is SOV.Udi does not have gender, but has declension classes.
Vowels
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|---|---|---|
| i iˤ (y) | u uˤ | |
| ɛ ɛˤ (œ) | ə | ɔ ɔˤ |
| (æ) | ɑ ɑˤ |
Consonants
| 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... |
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... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| lenis | fortis Fortis and lenis In linguistics, fortis and lenis are terms generally used to refer to groups of consonants that are produced with greater and lesser energy, respectively, such as in energy applied, articulation, etc.... |
||||||||
| 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... |
b | d | ɡ | |||||
| 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 | |||||
| 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 | d͡ʒː | |||||
| 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 | t͡ʃː | ||||||
| ejective | t͡sʼ | t͡ʃʼ | t͡ʃːʼ | ||||||
| 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 | ʃː | x | h | ||
| 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 | ʒː | ɣ | ||||
| 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 | |||||||
External links
- Appendix:Cyrillic script
- Udi at EthnologueEthnologueEthnologue: 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...
- The Udi Language: a grammatical description with sample text — Wolfgang Schulze 2001/2 (University of MunichLudwig Maximilians University of MunichThe Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich , commonly known as the University of Munich or LMU, is a university in Munich, Germany...
) - The Udis
- Historical map
- A Functional Grammar of Udi, Wolfgang Schulze, 2005
- The cognitive dimension of clausal organization in Udi, Wolfgang Schulze, 2000
- The Udi language, Wolfgang Schulze, 2002
- John M. Clifton: The Sociolinguistic Situation of the Udi in Azerbaijan. SIL International, 2005. (PDF-Datei; 206 kB)
