● Avar is a region of Dagestan whose populationAvar spreads to Azerbaijan, shown here as region 7 ● Dagestan has 6 literary languages including Avar which has more than 780,000 speakers worldwide.
Avar Language● Cyrillic alphabet (has a history of Georgian and Arabic alphabet too)● Avar is an ergative language● The Caucasian Avar language possibly has some affinity with ancient Mesopotamian agglutinative languages like Hurrian, Sino- Tibetan and Ket● Belongs to Avar-Andi-Tsez subgroup of the Alarodian Northeast Caucasian (or Nakh- Dagestanian) language family
East Caucasian Language familyLatest attempt at internal classification. (Schulze (2009))
Traditional classificationThe Avar-Andic-Tsezic Languages are spoken in the Northwest Dagestanhighlands and western Dagestan.Avar is the lingua franca for these languages, and the only literary language.
Dialects of Avar● There are two main dialect groups:● The northern, which includes Khunzakh, Kazbek, Gunib, Gumbet and others;● The southern, which includes Andalal, Gidatl, Antsukh, Charoda, Tlyarata, Cumada, Cunta and others.● Avar has fifteen spoken dialects: Avar, Bagulal, Chamalal, Budukh, Botlikh, Andi, Godoberi, Tindi, Karati, Akhvakh, Dido, Khvarshi, Ginukh, Hunzib, and Bezhiti, each named after its speaking tribe.
ReferencesSCHULZE, Wolfgang (2009), "The Languages of the Caucasus"