Dargin languages

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (May 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Russian article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 979 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Даргинские языки]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|ru|Даргинские языки}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Dargin
Dargwa
Geographic distribution	Southcentral Dagestan[citation needed]
Native speakers	590,000 (2020 census)[1]
Linguistic classification	Northeast Caucasian Dargin
Subdivisions	North-Central Kajtak-Shari Southern Chirag
Language codes
ISO 639-2 / 5	dar
ISO 639-3	dar
Glottolog	darg1242
Dargin
Map of individual Dargin languages according to Koryakov 2021.[2]

The Dargin languages consist of a dialect continuum of over 60^[3] Northeast Caucasian languages or dialects spoken by the Dargin people in southcentral Dagestan. Kajtak, Kubachi, Itsari, Mehweb and Chirag are often considered dialects of the same Dargin/Dargwa language. Ethnologue lists these under a common Dargin language, but also states that these may be separate languages from Dargwa proper.^{[citation needed]} Reasons for classifying the southern group of dialects from the northern group is that speakers of the southern dialects have been reported as treating the literary Aqusha dialect as a foreign language.^[4] Due to the linguistic fragmentation of the Dargin langiuages, speakers use Russian as a lingua franca.^[5]

The Dargin languages are classified as follows by Koryakov 2021:^[2]

Mutalov 2021 proposes a different classification:^[6]

Glottolog uses a different classification, based on Koryakov 2012.^[7][8]

The following chart is a collective phoneme inventory of all Dargin languages.

1. Present in the literary standard of Dargwa, but not some other dialects.
2. Present in some dialects, but not the literary standard.

The source is rather ambiguous in its using the term "laryngeal" for a presumed column of consonants that includes both a "voiced" and a "glottalized" plosive. A voiced glottal plosive cannot be made, because the glottis needs to be closed, and an ejective consonant requires an additional closure further up the vocal tract. Pending clarification, this row has been transcribed here as an epiglottal column and a glottal stop, both found in many other East Caucasian languages.