Avar Lesson 1

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Lesson 1 - The Avar alphabet

Avar has been a written language since the 17th century, but there have been earlier attempts to adapt the Arabic alphabet to Avar. Until 1928 the Avars, like other ethnic groups of Dagestan, used a writing system based on that of Arabic and called "Ajam". From 1928 onward Avar was written in a Latin-based alphabet with a few extra diacritics. In 1938 this was replaced by the present Cyrillic alphabet.
The present alphabet consists of 46 letters. All of them are the same letters used in Russian except for the letter I (palochka), which has no sound of its own.
In addition to the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet, Avar has the following compound letters: гъ, гь, гI, къ, кь, кI, лъ, тI, хъ, хь, хI, цI, чI.
As we can see, there are 13 letters (and corresponding sounds) which do not exist in Russian. Their pronunciation is quite different but completely learnable. The so-called specific Caucasian sounds (abruptive or glottalized-ejective sounds) are expressed by combining the letters к, т, ц, ч with the Roman numeral I (palochka): кI, тI, цI, чI. The letters are pronounced the same way as the letters к, т, ц, т, but the tongue is pressed more firmly to the back upper palate, creating a tighter seal. A sharp "popping" sound is produced.

гь - corresponds to the German h (in the word haben - to have). Examples: гьан - meat, гьогьен - cool(ness).
хь - pronounced like the soft German ch (in ich - I). Examples: хьаг - cauldron, рехьед - herd.
хъ - pronounced deep in the throat, like къ but with aspiration. Examples: хъош - shelter, рахъ - channel.
къ - pronounced deep in the throat, like Arabic qaaf (ق). Examples: къо - day, бакъ - sun.
лъ - one of the special lateral consonants. Like the Welsh ll. Examples: ралъад - sea, нилъ - sickle.
кь -