Archi language

Archi /ɑːrˈtʃiː/ is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by the Archis in the village of Archib, southern Dagestan, Russia, and the six surrounding smaller villages.

It is unusual for its many phonemes and for its contrast between several voiceless velar lateral fricatives and voiceless and ejective velar lateral affricates and a voiced velar lateral fricative. It is an ergative–absolutive language with four noun classes and has a remarkable morphological system with huge paradigms and irregularities on all levels. Mathematically, there are 1,502,839 possible forms that can be derived from a single verb root.

Classification

The classification of the Archi language has not been definitively established. Peter von Uslar felt it should be considered a variant of Avar, but Roderich von Erckert saw it as closer to Lak. The language has also been considered as a separate entity that could be placed somewhere between Avar and Lak. The Italian linguist Alfredo Trombetti placed Archi within an Avar–Ando–Dido group, but today the most widely recognized opinion follows that of the Soviet scholar Bokarev, who regards Archi as one of the Lezgian–Samur group of the Dagestan languages. Schulze places it in the Lezgian branch with all other Lezgian languages belonging to the Samur group.