| Also Known As: Archin,Archintsy
Description:
Archi 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.
The classification of the Archi language has not been definitively established. Peter von Uslar felt it should be considered a variant of the Avar language, but Roderich von Erckert saw it is 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, Trombetti, placed the Archi language within the Avar-Ando-Dido group, but today the most widely recognized opinion follows that of the Soviet scholar, E. Bokarev, who regards Archi as one of the Lezgian-Samur group of the Dagestan languages.
The voiceless velar lateral fricative /ʟ̝̊/ and the corresponding affricates /kʟ̝̊/, /kʟ̝̊ʼ/ are extremely unusual speech sounds. (Velar fricatives are usually central rather than lateral.)..... full article at Wikipedia |
