Budukh language

Budukh or Budugh (Будад мез, Budad mez^[3]) is a Lezgic language of the Northeast Caucasian language family spoken in parts of the Quba Rayon of Azerbaijan. It is spoken by about 200 of approximately 1,000 ethnic Budukhs.^[1]

Budukh
Будад мез Budad mez
Pronunciation	[budanu mɛz]
Native to	Azerbaijan
Region	Quba Rayon
Ethnicity	1,000 Budukhs (1990)[1]
Native speakers	200 (2010)[1]
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Lezgic Samur Southern Samur Budukh
Writing system	Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bdk
Glottolog	budu1248
ELP	Budukh
Budukh
Budukh is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger[2]

Budukh is a severely endangered language,^[4][5] and classified as such by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.^[2]

Orthography

There are two orthographies for Budukh, and it is beginning to be introduced into schools. The orthography takes the following form:^[6]

A a	Ä ä	B b	C c	Ç ç	Ç' ç'	D d	E e
Ә ә	F f	G g	Ğ ğ	Ğh ğh	H h	Hh hh	X x
Xh xh	I ı	İ i	J j	K k	K' k'	Q q	Q' q'
Qh qh	L l	M m	N n	O o	Ö ö	P p	P' p'
R r	S s	Ş ş	T t	T' t'	Ts' ts'	U u	Ü ü
V v	Y y	Z z	'

The Buduq Picture Dictionary, published in 2017, uses a slightly different orthography:^[7]

A a	Ä ä	B b	C c	Ç ç	Ç' ç'	D d	E e
Ә ә	F f	G g	Ğ ğ	H h	Ħ ħ	I ı	İ i
J j	K k	K' k'	L l	M m	N n	O o	Ö ö
P p	P' p'	Q q	Q' q'	Qh qh	R r	S s	Ş ş
T t	T' t'	Ts' ts'	U u	Ü ü	V v	X x	Xh xh
Y y	Z z	ʕ	'	˚

Grammar

Gender and agreement

Authier (2010) reports that Budugh has six 'gender-number' classes:

• human masculine,
• human adult feminine,
• animate (which includes animals, plants, and non-adult human females, as well as some abstract nouns),
• inanimate,
• nonhuman plural,
• human plural.

Verbs normally agree with their absolutive argument (intransitive subject or transitive object) in gender. In the following examples, the verb 'beat' shows animate agreement with 'donkey' and non-human plural agreement with 'donkeys'.

Ma'lla'-cır

Mullah-ERG

lem

donkey

ğùvotu-ri

ANIM:beat:PRES

Ma'lla'-cır lem ğùvotu-ri

Mullah-ERG donkey ANIM:beat:PRES

'Mullah beat the donkey'

Ma'lla'-cır

Mullah-ERG

lemér

donkey

ğùtu-ri

NHUM.PL:beat:PRES

Ma'lla'-cır lemér ğùtu-ri

Mullah-ERG donkey NHUM.PL:beat:PRES

'Mullah beat the donkeys'

Compare these examples with the following, where the verb agrees with the intransitive subject:

Ma'lla'

Mullah

vìxhici

M:go:NARR

Ma'lla' vìxhici

Mullah M:go:NARR

'Mullah went.'

Lem

donkey

vüxhücü

ANIM:go:NARR

Lem vüxhücü

donkey ANIM:go:NARR

'The donkey went.'

Verb agreement

Budukh verbs typically agree with a single argument, the absolutive. In the agreement paradigms, the majority of verbs show no overt agreement for the masculine, neuter, and nonhuman plural. Consider the following paradigm for the verb 'keep' in the perfective (Authier 2009):

M/N/NPL	ˤa-q-a
F	ˤa-ra-q-a
A	ˤa-va-q-a
HPL	ˤa-ba-q-a

In this paradigm, /ˤa/ is a preverb which must appear with the verb root /q/ 'keep', and the agreement morphology appears between the preverb and the root. Due to historical changes, the relationships between the various members of an agreement paradigm are often more complex and show changes of vowel and/or consonant. The following perfective paradigm for 'go' shows this (with the reconstructed form shown after the *)

M	vi-xhi
F	v-r-xhi
A	vüxhü < *vi-v-xhi
N/NPL	vidki < *vi-d-xhi
HPL	vibki < *vi-b-xhi

Word order

Budukh is an SOV language, as seen in the following example:

Ma'lla'-cır

Mullah-ERG

lemér

donkey

ğùtu-ri

NHUM.PL:beat:PRES

Ma'lla'-cır lemér ğùtu-ri

Mullah-ERG donkey NHUM.PL:beat:PRES

'Mullah beat the donkeys'

It has possessors before possessed nouns:

Mallá-co

Mullah-ADLOC

rij

daughter

Mallá-co rij

Mullah-ADLOC daughter

'the mullah's daughter'

Adjectives appear before the nouns that they modify:

q'usú

old

Mallá'

mullah

q'usú Mallá'

old mullah

'the old mullah'