Tsakhur language
language
Tsakhur (Tsakhur: цӀаӀхна миз, romanized: ts'əxna miz) is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by the Tsakhurs in northern Azerbaijan and southwestern Dagestan (Russia). It is spoken by about 11,700 people in Azerbaijan and by about 10,600 people in Russia. The word Tsakhur derives from the name of a Dagestani village where speakers of this language make up the majority.
Although Tsakhur is endangered in communities in closest contact with Azerbaijani, it is vigorous in other communities, gaining prominence in the region, seen in the growth of interest in learning Tsakhur in school and a growing body of Tsakhur-learning materials. Tsakhur is classified as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
Classification
Tsakhur belongs to the Lezgic group of the Northeast Caucasian language family. The Tsakhurs call their language C'a'ꭓna miz.
Related languages
Among the languages of the Lezgic group, Rutul appears to be the closest one to Tsakhur. Other than these two, there are eight more languages in the Lezgic group, namely: Lezgian, Tabasaran, Aghul, Budukh, Kryts, Udi, and Archi.
History
The first written documentation of Tsakhur dates back to 1895 and is attributed to Roderich von Erckert.
The public source identifies “Tsakhur language” as language. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tsakhur and language.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q36853. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1895.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tsakhur language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.