THE ROLE OF ARABISMS IN ENRICHING THE VOCABULARY OF DAGESTANIAN LANGUAGES

Abstract

The article uses Arabic-borrowed vocabulary for semantic analysis, which is characteristic of the five largest Dagestani languages with written traditions: Avar, Dargin, Lak, Lezgin, and Tabasaran. The choice of languages with written traditions is due to the fact that the presence of written sources significantly facilitates the selection of appropriate vocabulary for analysis and makes it possible to trace the dynamics of the displacement of certain Arabisms, by corresponding borrowings from the Russian language. An attempt is made to categorize borrowings into thematic groups based on the discourse they serve: religious, everyday, temporal, trade and economic, and military and political. Differences in the phonetic and grammatical structure of borrowings across languages are identified. These differences demonstrate the unique phonetic and grammatical structures of each indigenous Dagestani language, despite their relatedness and shared ergative structure. The role of Arabic in the development of the vocabulary of the Dagestani languages is noted.