Lezgian Alphabet

Lezgian, which its speakers call лезги чӀал (lezgi chal, the Lezgi language), has used the current Cyrillic alphabet since 1938. Like the other written languages of Dagestan it uses no special letter shapes: of its 45 letters, 33 are single Cyrillic letters from А а to Я я, and 12 are digraphs, a base letter followed by ъ, ь or the stick Ӏ. Each digraph counts as a letter of the alphabet, sorted right after its base letter.

The full list runs: А, Б, В, Г, Гъ, Гь, Д, Е, Ё, Ж, З, И, Й, К, Къ, Кь, КӀ, Л, М, Н, О, П, ПӀ, Р, С, Т, ТӀ, У, Уь, Ф, Х, Хъ, Хь, Ц, ЦӀ, Ч, ЧӀ, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю, Я. Letters such as Ё and Щ turn up mainly in words taken from Russian.

Lezgian was written in Arabic script and also in an earlier modified Cyrillic alphabet; from 1928 to 1938 it used a Latin alphabet. The literary language rests mainly on the Güne (Kurin) dialect of southern Dagestan, and Cyrillic is the standard in schools, books and the press, such as the newspaper Лезги газет.

What Уь, КӀ, ПӀ, Гъ and Хь write in Lezgian

Уь уь is the one vowel digraph: a rounded front vowel close to German ü, as in хуьр (village). It is a frequent letter in Lezgian and has no equivalent in Russian, so leaving out the ь turns it into a different vowel.

КӀ, ПӀ, ТӀ, ЦӀ and ЧӀ are ejectives: k, p, t, ts and ch said with a sharp pop from a closed throat, as in чӀал (language). Lezgian has the ejective p, so it needs ПӀ; Avar also has ejective пӀ, though it is rare in the literary language. Гъ, Къ, Кь, Хъ and Хь write consonants made at the back of the mouth, around the uvula, and Гь is a plain h.

Lezgian also has rounded (labialized) consonants, usually written with в after the consonant, as in кӀвал (house). The spelling is not fully phonetic: Lezgian distinguishes aspirated and unaspirated p, t and k, but the standard alphabet writes both with the same letter.

How to type the palochka Ӏ for Lezgian

The palochka (Russian палочка, little stick) is U+04C0 Ӏ; its small form ӏ is U+04CF. Lezgian print usually sets the tall Ӏ inside small words too (чӀал, кӀвал), so if you need only one, copy Ӏ. The same character serves Avar, Dargwa, Chechen, Ingush, Kabardian, Adyghe and other Caucasian languages.

Russian keyboards have no palochka key, so people often type a Latin capital I, the digit 1 or the Ukrainian і. It looks alike, but search, sorting and spell-check see a different letter: чIал typed with a Latin I will not match чӀал.

Windows: in Microsoft Word type 04C0 and press Alt + X; elsewhere copy it from here. Mac: add the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 04C0. Linux: Ctrl + Shift + U, then 4c0 and Enter. HTML: Ӏ for Ӏ and ӏ for ӏ. On a phone, save Ӏ as a text shortcut or copy it here. Everything else, including Уь, Гъ and Хь, types on any Russian keyboard layout.

Where the Lezgian language is spoken

Lezgian is the language of the Lezgins, who live on both sides of the Samur river: in southern Dagestan, the Russian republic on the Caspian Sea, and in northern Azerbaijan, around Qusar. CLDR estimates around 250,000 speakers in Russia; that is an estimate, and it leaves out the Lezgian speakers of Azerbaijan. Lezgian towns and villages in Dagestan include Kasumkent and Akhty, and many Lezgins live in Derbent and Makhachkala.

Lezgian belongs to the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian family, together with smaller languages such as Tabasaran, Agul, Rutul and Tsakhur. Unlike most of its relatives it has no grammatical gender or noun classes, but it has a famously large set of cases, many of them for saying exactly where something is. Most speakers also know Russian or Azerbaijani, and prices are written in rubles ₽ or manats ₼.

Neighbouring languages have their own collections: Avar and Dargwa, also Northeast Caucasian and also written with the palochka; Chechen and Ingush; Kumyk, the Turkic language of Dagestan's lowlands; Azerbaijani; and Russian. Country emoji are in the Russia 🇷🇺 and Azerbaijan 🇦🇿 collections.