Kaitag Dictionary
Magomed Magomedov, +7 999 533-93-50, alkaitagi@outlook.com
Uzlipat Gasanova, +7 960 408-99-18, uzlipat066@mail.ru
5,171 lexemes · DB 20.05.2025 · doc 29.05.2025 · license CC BY 4.0
This work primarily draws on the speech of the villages Turaga (Irchamul microregion) and Shilyagi (Lower Kattagan microregion). The the core of the lexical database is from the dissertation of Gasanova U. U. (2012), with whom we spent countless hours refining the material. Additional resources include the works of Temirbulatova S. M. (2004, 2008, 2021) and Gabibova K. M. (2009).
The dictionary is available in three formats:
- The website Urssivar.com for easy access on any device
- The PDF document for local storage and printing
- The Google Sheets table for data analysis and linguistic research
Plus a short commentary: "Meet the Kaitag Dictionary" on YouTube.
There are several critical priorities going forward. First, we must urgently gather more material. Very little has been documented about the Kaitag language and culture, and the older generation is passing away. Second, we need to expand the existing entries. This includes adding usage examples, without which many meanings remain unclear, and specifying village variants, which is essential for deeper linguistic study. Finally, thorough verification is needed to correct inaccuracies and to address inconsistencies in orthography.
All of this will require crowdsourcing and collaboration.
Ulbetay niśala,
Mæhæmad
Entry Structure
Each entry in the dictionary includes a headword, grammatical tags, and definitions. When relevant, minimal yet sufficient grammatical forms are also included. Occasionally, variants from different Kaitag dialects appear on the next line, preceded by "//"; however, the exact village origin of these variants is not currently specified.
The first grammatical tag always indicates the part of speech, with additional grammatical forms provided accordingly:
- Nouns (N) list the nominative case as the headword (тьу́пп 'finger'), followed by the oblique case (тьуппу́-), and the plural (тьиппе́ 'fingers'). In some cases, the headword may already be plural (PL). Rarely there's also an irregular locative form (яша́ккан 'into pot').
- Verbs (V) are given in the imperfective infinitive (кабирга́ра 'to sit (to be in the process)'), followed (when available) by the perfective (кабига́ра 'to sit') infinitive and the aorist (ка́бижив 'sat').
- Adjectives (ADJ) (яхи́ 'good') may include irregular adverbial forms (я́хял 'well'), which are typically accompanied by a shift of stress to the beginning of the word.
- Cardinal numerals (NUM) (чьвел 'two') include the oblique case (чьул-) and the stem (чьу-).
Other parts of speech include adverbs (ADV), conjunctions (CONJ), prepositions (PREP), postpositions (POSTP), interjections (INTERJ), pronouns (PRON), copulas (COP), particles (PART), and determiners (DET). Some of these categories are assigned loosely and may not reflect precise grammatical classification.
Any word may also be marked with a grammatical class (CLS). These are labeled with the neuter class -б- (биҡна́ 'old').
Phonetics & Orthography
The dictionary uses the modern Kaitag alphabet. Below is an overview of the grapheme-phoneme correspondences and orthographic conventions.
Consonants
| /m/ м | /n н | ||||||
| /b/ б | /d/ д | /g/ г | |||||
| /p/ [pʰ] п | /t/ [tʰ] т | /k/ [kʰ] к | /q/ [qʰ~qχʰ] ҡ | /ʔ/ [ʔ~ʡ] ъ | |||
| /pː/ пп | /tː/ тт | /kː/ кк | /qː/ ҡҡ | ||||
| /pʼ/ пь | /tʼ/ ть | /kʼ/ кь | /qʼ/ ҡь | ||||
| /ts/ [tsʰ] ц | /tʃ/ [tʃʰ] ч | ||||||
| /tsː/ цц | /tʃː/ чч | ||||||
| /tsʼ/ ць | /tʃʼ/ чь | ||||||
| /v/ [β~ʷ] в | /z/ з | /ʒ/ ж | /ʁ/ ғ | ||||
| /s/ с | /ʃ/ ш | /x/ [x~ç] ҳ | /χ/ х | /h/ [h~ħ] ь | |||
| /r/ [ɾ] р | |||||||
| /l/ [l~lʲ] л | j й | ||||||
A glottal stop /ʔ/ ъ is implicitly present before word-initial vowels but is not written. The rare sound /ɸ/ ьв occurs in only one word: ьуьв /huɸ/ 'blow'. Additionally, the phonemes /ħ/ хӏ and /ʡ/ гӏ appear in a small number of words from the Sanchi variety, where they have not yet merged into /h/ ь and /ʔ/ ъ, respectively.
The phoneme /l/ л assimilates to adjacent /n/ н, and /n/ н assimilates to adjacent /b/ б. To keep the orthography transparent, these assimilations are not reflected in writing. Examples:
- у́ле 'eye', уле́н- (OBL) > уле́нла [уленна] бира́ра 'to jinx'
- шин 'water' > шинбе́ [шимбе] 'waters'
Some varieties lose consonant gemination in syllable-final position. However, gemination is restored when followed by a vowel, so it is consistently preserved in the orthography:
- миҡҡ [миҡ] 'wedding' > ми́ҡҡи 'at wedding'
- уцци́ 'brother' > уццбе́ [уцбе] 'brothers'
Syllable-final /l/ л becomes palatalized after vowels /e/ е, /i/ и:
- ьел [hɛlʲ] 'it'
- милъя́ [milʲʔæ] 'eggs'
Geminated Fricatives
The four voiceless fricatives /s/ с, /ʃ/ ш, /x/ ҳ, and /χ/ х can geminate, although whether this gemination is phonemic remains unclear:
Unlike geminated affricates and stops, their realization varies between villages without altering the meaning:
- атта́сса 'by father' (Sanchi) > атта́са (Shilyagi)
- баҳҳа́ра 'to walk' > баҳа́ра
It is clearly audible only between vowels:
- ччими́сси 'quince' (Shilyagi) > ччи́мсе (Turaga)
It consistently appears in plural forms with -е:
- яру́с 'Russian' > яруссе́ 'Russians'
- but яру́си 'to [a] Russian'
For now, fricative gemination is not shown in the orthography (ни́са [нисса]) but is marked in the IPA in the table ([ˈnisːa]). Further study is needed.
Vowels
| /i/ [ɪ] и | /u/ у | |
| /e/ [ɛ] е | /a/ [ɑ~ɐ] а | /o/ [ɔ~ʷɑ~œ] о |
| /æ/ [æ~aˤ] я |
Note: While /o/ is technically just a contextual realization of /ʷa/, treating it as a separate phoneme makes writing significantly more convenient.
To maintain transparent orthography, vowel assimilations in verb morphology are not reflected in the spelling.
The directional prefixes ка- /ka-/, ьа- /ha-/, ца- /tsa-/, as well as the negative prefix а- /a-/, become /æ/ я or /e/ е when followed by verb roots with these vowels:
- бел 'still is' > а́бел [ебел] 'no more'
- ц́яун 'came' > а́цяун [яцяун] 'didn't come'
- бертта́ра 'to rip' > цабертта́ра [цеберттара] 'to tear'
- бяҡа́ра 'to wound' > ьабяҡа́ра [ьябяҡара] 'to kick'.
In most varieties, the vowel in the causative suffixes -их /-iχ/, -ух /-uχ/, and -ях /-æχ/ assimilates to the vowel that follows:
- бара́ра 'to do' > бариха́ра [барахара] 'to force to do'
- биьо́ра 'to be' > биьуха́ра [биьахара] 'to let be, to make'
- бя́рғур 'dried' > бя́рғяхур [бярғухур] 'made dry'
Stress
Stress is prominent and contrastive in Kaitag. It is always marked on headwords:
- ьана́ 'currently'
- ьа́на 'plate'
In case-inflected forms, stress shifts to the final syllable of the stem, immediately before the case suffix:
- а́тта 'father' > атта́-ла 'father's'
- бизи́ 'cat' > бизи́-цци 'with cat'
- Мяья́мад 'Muhammad' > Мяьяма́д-и 'to Muhammad'
This applies to the oblique stem when present:
- чух 'walnut' > чуха́-ла 'of walnut'
- ляъ 'ear' > ляъу́н-жи 'onto ear'
- миҡе́ре 'chest' > миҡри́н-цци 'into chest'
Plural forms have stress on the final syllable of the plural stem, before any case suffixes:
- кка́лкка 'tree', ккилккне́ 'trees' > ккилккна́-ла 'of trees'
- мургу́л 'man', миргле́ 'men' > миргла́-ла 'of men'
In verbs, stress falls on the penultimate syllable in the infinitive and on the first syllable in other forms:
- бара́ра 'to do' > ба́рив 'did'
- чицабуца́ра 'to put on' > чи́цабуца 'put on!'
Alphabet
The modern Kaitag alphabet, developed in 2024 and based on Cyrillic, consists of 27 letters from the Russian alphabet (excluding Щ, Ф, Ы, Э, Ё, and Ю), along with 3 additional characters (Ғ, Ҡ, Ҳ) and 12 specific digraphs.
Resources
- Presentation: "Evolving the Kaitag script" on YouTube
- Mobile keyboards: Yandex Keyboard and Google Gboard
- Automatic text converter: Yaziv