Under the general editorship of G. G. Gamzatov. Ed. by N. S. Dzhidalaev. Makhachkala-Moscow, 2000, 553 p. (Languages of the peoples of Russia)

The book is the first issue of the encyclopedia series " Languages of the Peoples of Russia "(editor - in-chief-V. P. Neroznak )and is devoted to an ethnolinguistic description of the language situation in the Republic of Dagestan. ¹ The main part of the book is preceded by three introductory articles (with an English translation). In the article "On the publication of the encyclopedia series "Languages of the Peoples of Russia", V. P. Neroznak tells about this publishing project, which originated under the auspices of the now defunct Institute of Languages of the Peoples of Russia of the Ministry of Nationalities and Federal Relations of the Russian Federation. As part of the series, it is planned to publish monographic descriptions of each of the historical languages of Russia (of which there are about two hundred), as well as separate descriptions of multilingual regions of the country. Descriptions will be carried out according to a single standard scheme, the development of which "took into account the world and domestic experience in compiling linguistic encyclopedias."-

(c) 2003

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pediy" (p. 5). Thus, the series "Languages of the Peoples of Russia" will be a new type of publication - "ethnosociolinguistic encyclopedia".

Corresponding member RAS G. G. Gamzatov in his introductory speech "Language is the soul and name of the people" touches upon the problems of interethnic relations, which are largely related to the language situation. According to the author, "it was the factor of the extraordinary multinational cohabitation of peoples, the factor of the unique multilingualism and diversity of historical and cultural development that was destined to play a crucial role in protecting Dagestan from interethnic confrontation, in defending its unity" (p.14).

N. S. Dzhidalaev in his article "The linguistic life of Dagestan" gives a general description of the language situation in the republic, including information about the genetic affiliation of the languages that exist in it, the history of their distribution in the region, their sociolinguistic status, as well as the role of the Russian language in Dagestan.

The content of the book includes essays on all languages belonging to the Dagestan group (as part of the Nakh - Dagestan family), as well as on other Caucasian languages spoken in Dagestan - a total of 31 languages. The essays contain brief information about native speakers, the functioning of languages in the past and present, as well as their grammatical structure. The material is grouped into three sections. The section "Literary languages" includes articles about languages that have a long written tradition or have received writing in recent years: Avar (author-G. I. Madiyeva), Agul (N. D. Suleymanov), Azerbaijani (M. I. Shiraliyev), Darginsky (M. S. Musayev), Kumyk (K. S. Kadyradjiev), Lak (I. Kh. Abdullaev), Lezgian (U. A. Meilanova), Nogai (D. M. Shikhmurzaev), Rutul (G. Kh.Ibragimov), Tabasaran (B. G. Khanmagomedov), Tat (N. S. Dzhidalaev), Tsakhur (B. B. Talibov), Chechen (A. G. Magomedov).

The section "Non-written languages" includes articles about small languages of mountainous Dagestan that do not have a written language: Andian (P. A. Saidov), Archin (D. S. Samedov), Akhvakh (Z. M. Magomedbekova), Bagvalinsky (P. T. Magomedova), Bezhtinsky (M. Sh. Khalilov), botlikhsky (Kh. G. Azaev), Ginukhsky (I. A. Isakov), Godoberinsky (P. A. Saidova), gunzib (I. A. Isakov), karatinsky (Z. M. Magomedbekova), tindinsky (P. T. Magomedova), khvarshinsky (N. S. Dzhidalaev), tsezsky (M. Sh.Khalilov), Chamalinsky (P. T. Magomedova).

A special section- "Languages of the Dagestan group spoken outside Dagestan" - includes four essays on languages whose native speakers live mainly in Azerbaijan and partly in Georgia: Budukhsky (E. M. Sheikhov), Kryzsky (Sh. M. Saadiyev), Udinsky (G. V. Topuria) and khinalugsky (F. A. Ganiev).

Appendices include: alphabetical "List of languages, adverbs, dialects, and dialects of the languages of Dagestan", list of names of languages (in the language itself, in Russian and in English), "Data on the number of peoples of Dagestan" and "Data on the level of proficiency of the peoples of Dagestan in Russian and other languages" (according to the population census of 1989), as well as brief information about the 26 authors of the book.

To date, there are already several encyclopedic publications that include articles on the languages of Russia, including the languages of Dagestan. The main ones are: "Languages of the peoples of the USSR. Vol. 4. Iberian-Caucasian languages "(Moscow, 1967), " Languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation and neighboring states "(Vol. 1-2, Moscow, 1997-2002), " Languages of the World: Caucasian Languages "(Moscow, 2001) ² . The peer-reviewed publication differs in that it contains information about the languages of this particular region for the first time. Another feature of the project is that the authors ' team is represented exclusively by specialists living in the Caucasus , primarily in Dagestan itself (mainly by leading linguists from Dagestan State University and the Dagestan Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences), as well as in Azerbaijan and Georgia.

When preparing such fundamental linguistic encyclopedic publications, of course, it is difficult to avoid shortcomings. You can also point out a number of weaknesses in this volume. However, I do this with confidence that in subsequent issues of the series "Languages of the Peoples of Russia", they will not be repeated.

As noted in the book, the description of each language is carried out in accordance with a single "standard scheme" (p. 5). However, this scheme itself is not given in the reviewed volume. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the standard description scheme in this series is quite traditional and does not need special comments. So, articles on specific languages usually include: 1) introductory part (with a story about the place of residence and the number of native speakers,

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its dialects and sociolinguistic status, the presence of a written language and literary variant, as well as the history of study); 2) the section "Phonetics" (with information about the system of vocalism and consonance, phonetic processes, stress and syllable structure); 3) the section " Morphology "(usually the most voluminous, where the presentation is conducted in parts of speech, for each of them, the formation and use of inflection forms, as well as word-forming means, are described); 4) the section "Syntax" (with basic information about the phrase, simple and complex sentence); 5) the section "Vocabulary" (where the types of native and borrowed lexemes are briefly characterized) and 6) the list of references.

There are, however, deviations from this standard. So, in the article about the Rutul language, the section "Morphology" is followed by the section " Morpho-syntactic information "(where word formation and syntax are characterized), and the section "Vocabulary" is absent. The article about the Tat language does not include the "Syntax" section. The article on the Lezgian language does not include the section "Phonetics", while the article on the Agul language includes "Word formation" as an independent section (data on which in other articles are given at the end of the section "Morphology"). It seems that such discrepancies could have been avoided; the standard scheme adopted in this series should probably still be published in the future (possibly with comments on the principles of filling its main sections).

In many articles of the collection, attention is drawn to the uneven information saturation of various points, which is not always justified, for example, by the weak study of the described phenomenon. First of all, the sections "Syntax" and "Vocabulary"are not sufficiently covered for many languages. The syntax section in most articles usually takes up one to one and a half pages, which is several times less than the volume of the morphological section. In principle, fragmentary information about syntax is traditional for short descriptions of Dagestani languages (compare such publications as" Languages of the Peoples of the USSR"," Languages of the World: Caucasian Languages", etc.), but this tradition undoubtedly needs to be overcome. The degree of knowledge of syntactic problems for many languages of Dagestan is not nearly as weak as it may seem from the relevant sections of the volume. In any case, it is unacceptable that the section on syntax does not contain any examples of phrases and sentences of the described language (as, for example, in articles on Andi, Ahvakh, Bagvalin, Tindin, and Udin languages). As for the "Vocabulary" section, the vast majority of articles contain only one short paragraph with references to the main types of loanwords, and without examples (the exception is articles on Avar, Kumyk, Lezgian, Tabasaran, Archi, Khvarshi, Tsez languages, and partly also Nogai, Tat, and Budukha).

A certain heterogeneity is observed in the articles of the section "Morphology". This section is intended to characterize the inflectional paradigm of the main significant parts of speech (first of all, the noun, adjective, pronoun, verb), but not all authors give examples of paradigms at least on the example of one lexeme. In addition, if form formation is considered fairly exhaustively in all articles, then information about the use of forms (for example, cases of a name or specific forms of a verb) is brief or completely absent. In most cases, only the names of forms and their approximate Russian translations are given (and without context, i.e. outside of sentences), which often makes it difficult to understand specific case or time-specific semantics. This situation is most typical for the description of the verb system : a sample of the complete verb paradigm is given only in a smaller part of the articles, and individual comments on the meaning and use of forms are available in isolated cases (the most complete for the Tat language, partly also for Ginukha, Gunzib, Tabasaran, Kumyk and Budukha).

As a rule, the information content of articles on written languages of Dagestan is higher than on non-written ones, which is explained by the weak knowledge of the latter (primarily the languages of the Andean group). In this regard, it is pleasant to note, for example, rather voluminous and carefully compiled articles on such non-written languages as Khvarshinsky or Tsezsky (despite the fact that, for example, no special monographic description of its grammatical structure still exists for the Khvarshinsky language).

In all articles of the collection, examples are recorded in the accepted Cyrillic-based graph (or transcription) ³ . At the same time, no article provides the alphabet of this language, and most articles do not specify the relationship between graphics and transcription.

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with signs. (Although this correlation may be far from trivial, as can be seen from the available fragmentary references to the peculiarities of transmitting certain sounds in articles about Azerbaijani, Kumyk, Nogai, Tabasaran and Tat languages.) This circumstance sometimes creates confusion, most noticeable in the case of new written languages. It remains unclear whether the recording method used corresponds to the accepted graphics, or whether it is conditional (and if so, how does it relate to the new graphics)? Providing alphabets and basic information about graphics and spelling for new written languages would be of great value in itself, since this information is usually not provided in reference books. The distinction between spelling and transcription should perhaps be made clearer by using a single transcription for the entire volume in the tables in the Phonetics section (for example, based on the international phonetic standard) and accompanying it with information about the correspondences between transcription signs and graphics. (However, for the sake of justice, it should be noted that none of the encyclopedic publications of this type mentioned above, such unification, unfortunately, was also carried out.)

I will also point out some heterogeneity in the bibliographic lists given in various articles: while in some articles the authors tried to give the maximum number of works on the described language (including articles in journals and collections), for many other articles the number of sources mentioned in the list of references is reduced to a minimum (three to five works each). In some cases, the shortness of the list of references is, of course, due to the lack of knowledge of the language and the lack of special publications. However, it is strange that the volume does not mention some fundamental grammatical descriptions of Dagestani languages that were made in recent years: for example, in Lezgian, Agul, Godoberian, and Tsakhur languages ^.4

In the useful appendix "Names of Languages" (p.545), there are some inconsistencies with the data given in the main part of the book: for example, the name of the Tsakhur language is given as yih sum, while on p. 237 - tsakhna miz. The names of the Archin (Arshashdib) and Bagvalin (bagvalal) languages are actually the names of the corresponding peoples (without the word "language"). In addition, the title of this appendix is not included in the content, and inside the book it is arranged in such a way that it breaks the alphabetical "List of Languages...".

Finally, from purely technical errors, we can note the use in most articles of an unconventional mark for quotation marks (opening "paws" at the top, closing at the bottom), which is quite inconvenient for perception.

These critical comments do not detract from the value of this publication, which is the first separate collection of detailed encyclopedic information on the languages of Dagestan to date. The task that the authors ' team set for themselves - to give the reader "a fairly complete and correct idea of the overall ethno - linguistic situation and each of the languages functioning in the Republic of Dagestan" (p. 17), "about the unique and sometimes unique linguistic life of the republic in the past and present" (p. 32) - has certainly been completed. The book can be used as a valuable reference guide by philologists, ethnographers, political scientists, cultural scientists and a wide range of readers interested in the unique linguistic life of the republic.

notes

¹ Even before the book was published, three monographic descriptions of the languages of the Caucasus were published: Alekseev M. E., Sheikhov E. M. Lezgin language. Moscow: Academia, 1997; Alekseev M. E., Ataev B. M. Avar language. Moscow: Academia, 1998; Aliroev I. Yu. Chechen language.Moscow: Academia, 1999.

² Cf. also similar in concept to a multi-volume English-language publication: The Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus. Vol. 1-4. Delmar-New York, 1989-1994.

³ The Cyrillic notation is used even in the article about the Azerbaijani language, although, as indicated in the text itself (p.96), since 1992, a Latin-based script has been adopted in Azerbaijan.

^{Haspelmath М.} 4 A Grammar of Lezgian. Berlin-New York, 1993; Tarlanov Z. K. Aguls: their language and history. Petrozavodsk, 1994; Kibrik A. E. (ed.). Godoberi. Lincom Europa, 1997; Kibrik A. E. (ed. - comp.). Elements of the Tsakhur language in typological illumination, Moscow, 1999.

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