Social:Sanzhi language

Short description: Dargin language

Sanzhi
Sanzhi Dargwa
сунглан гъай sunglan ʁaj
Pronunciation	[sunglan ʁaj]
Native to	Russia
Region	Dagestan
Ethnicity	Sanzhi Dargwa (sunglan-te)
Native speakers	250 (2019)
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Dargin Southern Sanzhi-Itsari Sanzhi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	sanz1248
Sanzhi (and Itsari)

Sanzhi (Sanzhi: sunglan ʁaj, also called Sanzhi Dargwa) is an endangered Dargin language spoken by about 250 people in Dagestan, part of the Northeast Caucasian family and closely related to Itsari. It is considered critically endangered due to its obsolescence in favor of Russian. The language is unwritten.

History

In the 1970s, the Sanzhis left their original village of Sanzhi, which is believed to have been inhabited for around 10,000 years, and moved to the lowlands, predominantly the village of Druzhba. In the summers, however, they still return to Sanzhi to do various activities like fishing and berry picking.

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Pharyngeal/ Epiglottal	Glottal
						plain	lab.	plain	lab.
Stop	plain	p	t			k	kʷ	q	qʷ	ʡ	ʔ
	voiced	b	d			g	gʷ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ			kʼ	kʼʷ	qʼ	qʼʷ
	geminate	pː	tː			kː	kːʷ	qː	qːʷ
Fricative	plain		s	ʃ		x	xʷ	χ	χʷ	ħ	h
	voiced		z	ʒ				ʁ	ʁʷ
	geminate		sː	ʃː		xː		χː	χːʷ
Affricate	plain		t͡s	t͡ʃ
	ejective		t͡sʼ	t͡ʃʼ
	geminate		t͡sː	t͡ʃː
Naal		m	n
Liquid			r l
Semivowel		w			j

Younger speakers tend to pronounce the labialized consonants as plain ones.

Vowels

Sanzhi has 7 vowels, 4 plain ones and 3 pharyngealized vowels.

	Front		Central		Back
	plain	phar.	plain	phar.	plain	phar.
Close	i	[iˁ]			u	uˁ
Mid	e
Open			a	aˁ

/i/ has the allophones [ı], [i]; [ıˁ], [iˁ], /e/ can be realized as [e] or [], and /u/ is realized as [u], [ʊ]; /uˁ/ is also pronounced as [ʊˁ].

[aˁ] is by far the most common pharyngealized vowel, as [uˁ] is much rarer and has only one known minimal pair. Only a few words have [iˁ], and even speakers are uncertain about it.

Syllable structure

Possible syllables in native words are as follows:

V, VC, VCC, CV, CVC and CVCC

The general structure is (C)V(C)(C).

Simple underived verbs, however, are much more limited in their structure; only [r], [l] and [ʡ] are permitted in the onset.

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns in Sanzhi Dargwa are marked for gender, number, and case. It distinguishes between three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter); has a singular-plural distinction in number; and has for grammatical cases (absolutive, ergative, dative, genitive) in addition to many spatial cases. Typical of Northeast Cauccasian languages, it displays ergative-absolutive alignment.

Gender

Sanzhi has a gender system typical of other Northeast Caucasian languages. They can appear as prefixes, suffixes, or infixes, and typically are not marked on nouns.

Gender Agreement Affixes

	Singular	1st/2nd Plural	3rd Plural
Masc.	w/∅	d	b
Fem.	r	d	b
Neuter	b	d

Number

The singular is unmarked, and the plural can be marked by several suffixes. The most productive suffixes are -e, -be, -te, and -me. Examples:

t'ult > t'ult-e 'bread'

bazar > bazar-te 'market'

Stem vowels may also undergo vowel mutation during this process: χabar > χabur-te ‘story, news’.

Case

Sanzhi Dargwa has 4 grammatical cases, 19 semantic cases, and 1 directional suffix.

Grammatical Cases

The core grammatical cases are absolutive, ergative, genitive, and dative, which appear as suffixes. Case endings are typically attached to an oblique stem. For singular nouns, the oblique stem is identical to the ergative case.

Grammatical Case Suffixes

Case	Suffix	Singular	Plural
Absolutive	-∅	juldaš 'friend'	juldaš:-e
Ergative	-l(i)	juldaš-li	juldaš:-a-l
Genitive	-la (-lla)	juldaš-la	juldaš-a(l)-la
Dative	-j	juldaš-li-j	juldaš:-a-li-j

Since Sanzhi Dargwa has absolutive-ergative alignment, the absolutive case occurs on the sole argument of an intransitive verb, or as the patient/theme of transitive or ditransitive verbs.

The ergative case suffix -li (with allomorphs -ni, -ri, and -l) occurs on the agent of transitive and ditransitive predicates. The genitive case suffix -la (with allomorphs -na, -ra, and -lla) is used to denote various relations such as possession, material, and units of measurement.

It is also used on the arguments of most postpositions. The dative case (-j) can be used as an experiencer with affective predicates: For beneficiaries: And for temporal duration:

Semantic Cases

Typical of Dagestanian languages, the semantic cases, also known as "spatial" cases, are organized along two dimensions: location and direction (i.e., movement).

		Direction
		Lative	Essive	Ablative
Location	LOC "in, on"	-le, -ja, -a	-le-b, -ja-b, -a-b	-le-r(-ka), -ja-r(-ka), -a-r(-ka)
	AD "at, close to"	-š:u	-š:u-b	-š:u-r(-ka)
	IN "in, on, at"	-c:e	-c:e-b	-c:e-r(-ka)
	SUB "under"	-gu	-gu-b	-gu-r(-ka)
	ANTE "in front"	-sa	-sa-b	-sa-r(-ka)
	POST "behind"	-hara	-hara-b	-hara-r(-ka)

• Lative denotes direction to a goal
• Essive denotes a stative location at a reference point
• Ablative denotes movement away from a reference point, or movement through/along a point

Examples:

References

Sources

• Forker, Diana (2019-07-17) (in en). A grammar of Sanzhi Dargwa. Language Science Press (published 2020). doi:10.5281/zenodo.3339225. ISBN 9783961101962. https://langsci-press.org/catalog/view/250/2031/1789-1.