Show Sanzhi the world
In March Language Science Press published ‘A grammar of Sanzhi Dargwa’ by Diana Forker, a full professor of Caucasus Studies at the University of Jena. Sanzhi Dargwa is a Dargwa language/dialect spoken mostly in one settlement in the Republic of Dagestan (Russian Federation) by approximately 250 people. The book by professor Forker is the first description of this severely endangered language and it covers all major levels of the language, from phonology to syntax and information structure. While the world got great documentation of the language, Sanzhi Dargwa itself is drowning to the near extinction.
We asked Diana about Sanzhi Dargwa grammar, its sociolinguistic environment and the main lessons she learned from dealing with Sanzhi Dargwa.
— This book is an outcome of the big research project you was involved in. Am I right that Russian academics also took part in it?
Yes, it was a project that run from 2012–2019. You can find a lot of information on the project homepage: in Russian (small version) and in English (full version). The project members (besides myself) were: Rasul Mutalov and Oleg Belyaev (both from Moscow), Iwona Kaliszewska (Warzaw), three students from Germany and my main assistant Gadzhimurad Gadzhimuaradov, a community member.
Oleg is currently writing a Shiri grammar and Iwona is an anthropologist who has published several papers on ethnobotanics.
— How much time did you spent in expeditions on site? What was the strongest impression you have got from it?
In total I spent around 5 months. My strongest impression was my host family, the family of Gadzhimurad Gadzhimuaradov and his wife Patimat.
They are such wonderful people and I learned a lot about life from them.
— Why do you call Sanzhi a distinct language? Am I right that in Russia, in Dagestan there are mainstream idea that Sanzhi as well as Shiri is just a dialect, a regional variety of the Dargwa language. Why do your vision differs regarding this issue?
There is no simple answer to the question what counts as a language and what counts as a dialect. During the Soviet times Standard Dargwa was established, which is based on the biggest Northern Dargwa variety, Akusha Dargwa. Sanzhi and Shiri belong to the south Dargwa varieties that differ from Northern Dargwa as certain Germanic languages differ from each other. People cannot understand each other.
So from this point of view Sanzhi and Shiri are clearly distinct. But instead of calling Sanzhi a language, I could have called it a dialect of the variety from the neighboring village Icari mainly just because Icari is the bigger village. But that would be a bit of an offense to the Sanzhi community. I could also argue the other way around and say that Icari is a dialect of Sanzhi. So in order to not offend anybody and to be agnostic about which is the dialect and which the language and since I don’t know the other South Dargwa varieties well and for the general linguistic community who does not anything about Dargwa varieties I call Sanzhi a language. And the speakers are proud of that.
— Sanzhi doesn’t have its own script, right?
Sanzhi can easily be written with the Standard Dargwa script (with two or three adjustments), so it kind of has its own script.
— What is the modern-day relations between Sanzhi and Standard Dargwa?
Perhaps similar to the relationship between Swedish and German. You immediately see that they must be related, but German do not understand Swedish and vice versa.
— Do Sanzhi speakers speak Standard Dargwa? Do they consume media production in Standard Dargwa?
They normally do not speak it unless they have learned it in school, but even then they do not use it. It is too far from their own language. I myself would not use Swedish even if I learned it in school to talk to somebody from Sweden, but English. So they use Russian. They normally do not consume media in Standard Dargwa except for music.
— How does the lack of the recognition and lack of the official status influence the Sanzhi language?
It is of course not nice that they do not learn their language in school, but Standard Dargwa instead. But on the long run my impression is that even the bigger languages in Dagestan with school classes are endangered. So from that perspective I would say that there is basically no big influence.
— Are there any governmental plans in Dagestan to protect this language?
As far as I know all languages of Dagestan are officially protected and there is even a kind of center of Dagestanian languages at the DGU (Dagestan State University) in Makhachkala. But globalization is just immense and a threat to almost every language that is not the only official language of a state, for sure to every language that has the size of Sanzhi. No governmental help can ever change that.
— Why it is not possible there to study their own language at local school?
There are no school books and no teaching material, and students are normally not very interested in their own languages.
— If it was allowed to study Sanzhi at local school at Druzhba, how would it influence the vitality of the language?
I don’t think that it would make any difference.
— What is the attitude of Sanzhi speakers towards their language?
They are proud of it. So it is a positive attitude.
— Do you see any dynamics of the Sanzhi language? What is it? What changes in language structure are undergoing now?
The dynamics is quite negative. Language attrition is going on. That is not really a change in the structure, because it will not last. Young people if they speak it at all use a rather simplified version very many Russian words, in particular light verb constructions, something like sobirat’ barq’ij (= ‘do, make’).
— How does other neighboring languages do influence Sanzhi?
Historically in particular Turkic had a comparatively large influence on Dargwa including Sanzhi even though the villages in the direct neighborhood are all Dargwa villages.
— What do you find most interesting and unusual in Sanzhi grammar?
I like the nominalization of the unmarked optative, that yields a really interesting structure. I have one example from the corpus in the grammar. It took me really a while to understand roughly what is going on.
— What is your personal relationship with Sanzhi language? How long ago did you start research of Sanzhi? What was your access to Sanzhi?
The first time I ever met a Sanzhi speaker was in 2011 and the speaker was Isakadi, a former teacher with whom I continued to work during the entire project. I got access through Rasul Mutalov, who was also a member of the project. He is an Icari speaker and knew about the situation of Sanzhi, that everyone had already left the village 40 years ago and that the language was in danger. My person relationship is very good. I like the language, but unfortunately I am not good at distinguishing sounds and getting a good pronounciation. So to learn the language was just impossible for me, although it would have been really great. And Sanzhi people just speak too fast. It seems to me that Dargwa speakers speak much faster than, e.g., Avar speakers.
— What do you love most in studying Sanzhi? What has surprised you most while researching Sanzhi language?
As I said, I really love my host family. I was lucky to find such a great family and to learn so many things from them. The biggest lesson I learned was that events are not just what happens to you but also what you make out of them. There is no need to make a big scandal out of little things. And to help other human beings is what makes us human.
by Artyom Malykh
