Tabassaran

The tabassaran (or tabasaran ; in Russian табасаранскийязык) is a representative of the subfamily Lezghien of the languages of the North-East of the the Caucasus. He is spoken by approximately: 95000 people, primarily in the southernmost areas of the republic of the Daguestan (the Russian Caucasus). One finds speakers of the tabassaran in the upstream reservoirs of the Rubas-wine storehouse and the Chirakh-wine storehouse. There exist two principal dialects: the tabassaran of north (khanag) and the south. The literary language is based on the dialect of the south, one of the six of the republic of Daguestan.

The tabassaran is a ergative language . The verbal system is relatively simple: the verbs agree with the name of number, in person, and for the tabassaran of north, in class. The tabassaran of north has two nominal classes; the tabassaran of the south, none.

Cases

The tabassaran is famous to be the language having the most Cas in the world: between 47 and 53, according to the dialects. It appeared for this reason in the Livre Guinness of the records (1997), even if the exact number of these cases were disputed: indeed, much of them constitute in fact of the combinations of several “basic” cases ( core boxes ), primarily space.

Examples:

cal : wall

cal-I : wall (+ ergatif case)

cal-I-K : on the vertical surface of the wall (+ ergatif + space)

cal-I-Q : behind the wall (+ ergatif + space)

cal-I-Q-Na : towards the back of the wall (+ ergatif + space + displacement)

cal-I-Q-year : of behind the wall (+ ergatif + space + displacement)

cal-I-Q-year-di : direction of behind the wall (+ ergatif + space + displacement + general)

cal-I-Q-di : along/through the back of the wall (+ ergatif + space + general).

Some simple sentences

Uwu aldakurawu "Увуалдакураву" - " You are in the train of tomber"

Uzuz uwu kkundžazuz "Узузувуккунжaзуз" - " I you aime"

Uwu fudžuwa? " Увуфужува? " - " Who are you? "

Fici wuna? " Фицивуна? " - " How are you? "

Zakur ɣyurza "Закургъюрза" - " I will come demain"

Hjelmslev and the tabassaran

Because of sound very great number of Case (approximately 52), the tabassaran was used as a basis of work to the Danish linguist Louis Hjelmslev to build a general accidental theory. According to him, the system of case of a language can include/understand three “dimensions”: the direction , the intimacy (or the coherence ) and the subjectivity/objectivity . This third dimension, very rare, appears in particular in the tabassaran and the Lak, both languages of the the Eastern Caucasus. Each dimension admitting 6 cases, the full number of case theoretically possible would be thus from (6 X 6 X 6) = 216. This assumption, based on a geometrical ideal a priori, is strongly disputed.

Sources

Random links: