Budukh or Budugh (, ) is a Lezgic language of the Northeast Caucasian language family spoken in parts of the Quba Rayon of Azerbaijan. It is spoken by about 200 of approximately 1,000 ethnic Budukhs.
Budukh is a severely endangered language,Published in: Encyclopedia of the world’s endangered languages. Edited by Christopher Moseley. London & New York: Routledge, 2007. 211–280.The sociolinguistic situation of the Budukh in Azerbaijan and classified as such by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
Orthography There are two orthographies for Budukh, and it is beginning to be introduced into schools. The orthography takes the following form: A aÄ äB bC cÇ çÇ' ç'D dE eӘ әF fG gĞ ğĞh ğhH hHh hhX xXh xhI ıİ iJ jK kK' k'Q qQ' q'Qh qhL lM mN nO oÖ öP pP' p'R rS sŞ şT tT' t'Ts' ts'U uÜ üV vY yZ z' The Buduq Picture Dictionary by Adigözəl Hacıyev, published in 2017, uses a slightly different orthography: A aÄ äB bC cÇ çÇ' ç'D dE eӘ әF fG gĞ ğH hĦ ħI ıİ iJ jK kK' k'L lM mN nO oÖ öP pP' p'Q qQ' q'Qh qhR rS sŞ şT tT' t'Ts' ts'U uÜ üV vX xXh xhY yZ zˁ'˚ The Budud dili school manual by Adigözəl Hacıyev, published in 2025, uses another revision. A aÄ äB bC cÇ çÇˊ çˊD dE eӘ әF fG gĞ ğH hHˊ hˊHˊˊ hˊˊİ iI ıJ jK kKˊ kˊL lM mN nO oÖ öP pPˊ pˊQ qQˊ qˊQh qhR rS sSˊ sˊŞ şT tTˊ tˊU uÜ üV vX xXˊ xˊY yZ zˊ˚ Grammar Gender and agreement Authier (2010) reports that Budugh has six 'gender-number' classes: human masculine, human adult feminine, animate (which includes animals, plants, and non-adult human females, as well as some abstract nouns), inanimate, nonhuman plural, human plural.
Verbs normally agree with their absolutive argument (intransitive subject or transitive object) in gender. In the following examples, the verb 'beat' shows animate agreement with 'donkey' and non-human plural agreement with 'donkeys'.
Compare these examples with the following, where the verb agrees with the intransitive subject:
Verb agreement Budukh verbs typically agree with a single argument, the absolutive. In the agreement paradigms, the majority of verbs show no overt agreement for the masculine, neuter, and nonhuman plural. Consider the following paradigm for the verb 'keep' in the perfective (Authier 2009):
M/N/NPLˤa-q-aFˤa-ra-q-aAˤa-va-q-aHPLˤa-ba-q-a
In this paradigm, /ˤa/ is a preverb which must appear with the verb root /q/ 'keep', and the agreement morphology appears between the preverb and the root. Due to historical changes, the relationships between the various members of an agreement paradigm are often more complex and show changes of vowel and/or consonant. The following perfective paradigm for 'go' shows this (with the reconstructed form shown after the *)
Mvi-xhiFv-r-xhiAvüxhü < *vi-v-xhiN/NPLvidki < *vi-d-xhiHPLvibki < *vi-b-xhi
Word order Budukh is an SOV language, as seen in the following example:
It has possessors before possessed nouns:
Adjectives appear before the nouns that they modify:
References
External links Budukh basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database