Tabasaran language

Tabasaran
табасаран чIал
tabasaran ç̇al
ихь чIал
Native toNorth Caucasus
RegionSouthern Dagestan
EthnicityTabasarans
Native speakers
126,900 (2010 census)[1]
Northeast Caucasian
Official status
Official language in
 Russia
Language codes
ISO 639-3tab
Glottologtaba1259
ELPTabasaran
  Tabasaran
Tabasaran is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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Tabasaran (also written Tabassaran) is a Northeast Caucasian language of the Lezgic branch. It is spoken by the Tabasaran people in the southern part of the Russian Republic of Dagestan. There are two main dialects: North (Khanag) and South Tabasaran. It has a literary language based on the Southern dialect, one of the official languages of Dagestan.

Tabasaran is an ergative language. The verb system is relatively simple; verbs agree with the subject in number, person and (in North Tabasaran) class. North Tabasaran has two noun classes (that is, grammatical gender), whereas Southern Tabasaran lacks noun classes / gender.

  1. ^ Tabasaran at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)