Rutul is a language spoken by the
RutulsRutuls are an ethnic group in Dagestan and some parts of Azerbaijan. According to the 2002 census, there were 29,929 Rutuls in Russia . The population figure for Rutuls in Azerbaijan is unknown since many of them choose to associate themselves with Lezgins...
, an ethnic group living in
DagestanThe Republic of Dagestan is a federal subject—republic—of the Russian Federation, located in the North Caucasus region....
(
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
) and some parts of
AzerbaijanAzerbaijan , formally the Republic of Azerbaijan , is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south...
. The word
Rutul derives from the name of a Dagestani village where speakers of this language make up the majority.
Classification
Rutul belongs to the Lezgic group of the
Northeast Caucasian (Dagestan)The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh'-Dag'estanian, or Caspian, constitute a language family spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia, in northern Azerbaijan, and in Georgia, as well as in diaspora populations in Russia, Turkey, and the...
language family. Rutuls call their language
myxʼabišdy čʼel.
History
The term Rutul was first used in the 15th century to designate Lezgic-speaking people in what is now southern Dagestan and Azerbaijan's
ShakiShaki is a city in North-west Azerbaijan, in the rayon of the same name....
rayon. It has been in official use since after 1917. Rutul was not a written language until the writing system for it (based on the
Cyrillic alphabetThe Cyrillic script writing system isan alphabet developed in the First Bulgarian Empire, and used in the Slavic national languages of Russian, Bulgarian, Belarusian, Rusyn, Serbian, Macedonian, and Ukrainian, and in the non-Slavic languages of Moldovan, Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Tuvan, and...
) was developed in 1990. Speakers are often bilingual or multilingual having a good command of Azeri, Lezgian and/or
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
languages. There are 8 dialects and 2 sub-dialects of Rutul. The literary version of the language remains in the process of development. In the Rutul-populated regions of southern Russia, Rutul is taught in primary schools (grades 1 to 4).
Related languages
Among the languages of the Lezgic group,
TsakhurTsakhur is a language spoken by the Tsakhurs, an ethnic group, which populates northern Azerbaijan and southwestern Dagestan . The word Tsakhur derives from the name of a Dagestani village where speakers of this language make up the majority....
appears to be the closest one to Rutul. Other than these two, there are eight more languages in the Lezgic group, namely: Lezgian,
TabasaranTabasaran is a member of the Lezgic subfamily of the Northeast Caucasian languages. It is spoken in the southern parts of the Russian Caucasus republic of Dagestan. Tabasaran speakers, Tabasaran people, live in the basin of Upper Rubas-chai and Upper Chirakh-chai. There are two main dialects:...
, Aghul, Budugh, Kryts, Khinalugh,
UdiThe Udi language, spoken by the Udi people, is a member of the Northeast Caucasian language family. It is believed this was the main language of Caucasian Albania, which stretched from south Dagestan to current day Azerbaijan....
and
ArchiArchi is a Caucasian language spoken by the 1,000 Archis in the village of Archi, southern Dagestan, Russia. It contrasts a voiceless velar lateral fricative with voiceless and ejective velar lateral affricates....
.
External links