- Tehlikedeki Diller Dergisi
- Vol: 13 Issue: 22
- Some Observations on the Azerbaijani Influence on Khinalug
Some Observations on the Azerbaijani Influence on Khinalug
Authors : Monika RIND-PAWLOWSKI
Pages : 73-135
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Publication Date : 2023-02-14
Article Type : Research
Abstract :The Nakh-Dagestanian language Khinalug is spoken in Khinalug village in the Quba district (North-East Azerbaijan) by approximately 2,300 people. All community members in the village are at least bilingual in their native language and Azerbaijani. Members of the elder generation speak also Russian. The language contact situation of Khinalug is very complex. The village Khinalug belongs to the administrative area of the Quba district, where the Quba dialect of Azerbaijani is spoken. On the other hand, it is located in the neighborhood of Lezgic languages. Azerbaijani must have served as a lingua franca among various ethnicities in Azerbaijan for several centuries, although Russian was L2 for some ethnic minorities in the Northern and North-Eastern parts of the country during the Soviet time. Nowadays, the influence of the standard varity of Azerbaijani, the official language of the Republic of Azerbaijan, has become dominant in Khinalug. Moreover, the whole area, including the neighboring countries, is characterized by the long-term influence of Persian and Arabic. This article aims at the identification of Azerbaijani influence in contrast to influences from other contact languages. The Azerbaijani lexicon itself contains, next to a recent layer of Russian borrowings, a large number of Persian loanwords, part of which go back to an Arabic origin. Direct borrowings from Arabic into Khinalug are attested as well, and direct borrowings from Persian are at least very probable. Therefore, phonetic features are investigated that hint at the borrowing path by which such loanwords have been transmitted to Khinalug. Moreover, the data show that the Azerbaijani language has had a great impact on all parts of the Khinalug grammar. In particular, Khinalug has introduced progressive vowel harmony, expresses spatial relations by postpositions rather than by nominal cases, uses some Azerbaijani derivational morphemes with native stems, and has adopted Azerbaijani clause structure by borrowing connectors from Azerbaijani, or reproducing Azerbaijani patterns with native means.Keywords : Hınalık, Nah-Dağıstan dilleri, Azerbaycan dili, Farsça, Arapça, Dil teması