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Kaitag
Kaidak, Karakaitak, Karkaidak, Qaidaqlan
хайдакьан кув
A speaker of Kaitag.
Pronunciation	[χɑjdɑqʼɑnkʰuβ] [χajdaq’la]
Native to	North Caucasus
Region	Dagestan
Ethnicity	Kaitags
Native speakers	approx. 30,000 (2020)[1]
Language family	Northeast Caucasian Dargin Kaitag group Kaitag
Dialects	Upper Kaitag Lower Kaitag Shari (may be a separate language)
Writing system	Cyrillic script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xdq
Glottolog	kajt1238
Kaitag

Kaitag (Kaitag:Хайдакьан кув[χɑjdɑqʼɑnkʰuβ]; alsoKaidak,Karakaitak,Karkaidak,Qaidaqlan) is aNortheast Caucasian language spoken inDagestan,Russia. It has sometimes been considered a divergent dialect ofDargwa due to it being part of theDargin dialect continuum. TheRoutledge Ethnographic Handbook (2017) divided Kaitag into two dialects: northern (Magalis-Kaitak) and southern (Karakaitak).^[2] Recent results of theAssociation of the Russian Sociolinguists (2021) further developed it into three dialects: Lower Kaitag, Upper Kaitag and Shari, the latter of which may be a separate but closely related language.^[3]

The languages consists of eight varieties, forming three dialects. Each of the Upper varieties corresponds to a historical province of the region.^[4]

• Upper Kaitag – Хъар Хайдакь (south-west).
  • Shurkkant –"The Cliff Dwellers" – Шурккант.
  • Qattagan –"The Gorge Dwellers" – Къаттагне.
  • Irchamul –"The Land of Nine" – Ирчӏамул.
• Lower Kaitag – Ххьар Хайдакь.
  • Barshamai – Баршамаӏъган.
  • Karatsan – Гъаӏрцӏнила.
  • Jibahni – Чӏивгьаӏн.
  • Sanchi – Сунклан.
• Shari – Шаӏръи.

Consonants form by series of voiced, aspirated, fortis, ejective, and labialized variants. The palatal fricative [ç] might be thevoiceless post-palatal fricative, which can be more precisely transcribed as [ç̠] or [x̟].^[5]

The Kaitag language is usually written in theCyrillic script. The letters of the alphabet are (with their pronunciation given below inIPA transcription):

Most of Kaitag's vocabulary stems from proto-Northeast-Caucasian roots. Like with other languages ofDagestan, there is a considerable number of Arabic, Iranian, Turkic and recently Russian loanwords.

• Kaytag dictionary

• Northeast Caucasian languages

• Language articles citing Ethnologue 25
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Pages with non-English text lacking appropriate markup from January 2025
• Articles containing Kaitag-language text
• Pages with plain IPA
• Pages with Kaitag IPA