Lezgian language

Spoken in

• Northeast Caucasian languages Lesgische languages Lezgian

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Lez

Lez

Lezgian is a Northeast Caucasian (after - Dagestani ) language, the Cuban, and Kürinisch Achtisch divided into the three dialects.

It was spoken in the Russian census of 2002, 336 698 people in the south of the autonomous republic of Dagestan ( Russian Federation), there are likely due to population growth today anymore. In all of Russia this last census revealed 411 500 Lezgins. In Azerbaijan, the 1999 census revealed of around 178,000 Lezgins in the country, which would almost mean a stagnation since 1989. Therefore, the public opinion research department of the Russian Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology estimates, citing its own research about 250 to 260 thousand Lezgins in Azerbaijan. There are some other ten thousand Lezgian spokesman in other parts of Russia and in other countries.

Alphabet

In the 19th century, a script was based on the kürinischen dialect, which has the most speakers, using Arabic letters developed. However, this was not often used. After the founding of the Soviet Union in 1928 the Latin alphabet in 1938 the Cyrillic alphabet for the written language used.

Linguistic situation

The speakers of the language in Azerbaijan lesgischen increasingly being assimilated by the Azerbaijanis since the ban of the use of lesgischen (better kürinischen ) written language in 1939. The majority of Lesgischsprachigen is also fluent in Russian.