Annotated Swadesh wordlists for the Dargwa group (North Caucasian family).

Languages included: Shiri [dgw-shr], Amuzgi [dgw-amz], Ashti [dgw-ash].

Data sources.

Oleg Belyaev's fieldwork in Daghestan, 2012-2014.

NOTES

I. General

1. Pharyngealization.

Pharyngealization in Dargwa is a syllable-level feature which may be realized both on vowels and on consonants. Among consonants, uvulars have pharyngealized and non-pharyngealized variants, while /ʡ/, /ħ/ and /ʕ/ are always pharyngealized; other consonants cannot carry the pharyngealization feature. Among vowels, only /a/ and /u/ may be pharyngealized in Shiri and Amuzgi, while all vowels can be pharyngealized in Ashti.

It is sufficient to mark pharyngealization once per syllable. The convention used herein is to always mark it on consonants, except for those that are always pharyngealized. Vowels are only marked if the preceding consonant is not pharyngealized. For example, /aˤ/ is unmarked in qʷˤab [qʷˤaˤb] ‘neck’ and ʡab [ʡaˤb] ‘three’ but marked in cʼutːaˤr ‘black’. This convention does not extend to Shiri fronted pharyngealized vowels, on which see below.

II. Shiri

1. General.

The Shiri wordlist was recorded and compiled in accordance with the GLD semantic specifications by Oleg Belyaev in Daghestan, 2012-2014 from three informants: (1) Name: Zhamaluddin, male, born 1952 in Mayartup (Chechnya), lives in Chinar, higher education, Shiri native speaker, also speaks Russian and Standard Dargwa; (2) Name: Magomedgabib, male, born 1960 in Shiri, lives in Chinar, technical education, Shiri native speaker, also speaks Russian; (3) Name: Akhmed, male, born 1940 in Shiri, lives in Shiri, higher education, Shiri native speaker, also speaks Russian and Standard Dargwa.

2. Transcription / phonetics.

Shiri has a peculiar feature in its vocalism that is not attested anywhere else in Dargwa: the opposition between two types of pharyngealized /a/ and /u/: simple and fronted (tense?). The former are transcribed as /aˤ/, /uˤ/, while the latter are transcribed as /ä/, /ü/. The exact nature of this opposition remains to be determined.

III. Amuzgi

1. General.

The Amuzgi wordlist was recorded and compiled in accordance with the GLD semantic specifications by Oleg Belyaev in Daghestan, 2013-2014 from one informant. Name: Zalumkhan, male, born 1971 in Mamedkala (Daghestan), lives in Amuzgi, technical education, also speaks Russian.

IV. Ashti

1. General.

The Ashti wordlist was recorded and compiled in accordance with the GLD semantic specifications by Oleg Belyaev in Daghestan, 2014 from one informant. Name: Murad, male, born 1975 in Ashti, lives in Makhachkala, Candidate of Science (PhD) degree, also speaks Russian.

Database compiled and annotated by: O. Belyaev, May 2014 (Shiri, Amuzgi, Ashti).