Khvarshi

Traditional territory and way of life. Sometimes Xvarshi and Inxokvari are treated as two separate languages. Muslim.

The Khvarshi language belongs to the Dido subgroup of the northwestern group of the Dagestan languages and is divided into two: the Khvarshi and the Inhokari dialects. The Inhokari dialect has in turn three vernaculars. Loan-words have been absorbed into the Khvarshi vocabulary throughout the centuries, from the Avar, Arab, Turkish and Georgian languages. In the 20th century Russian has exerted the strongest influence particularly in terms of political and technical vocabulary. The Khvarshi do not have a written language of their own, instead, they use that of the Avar. Avar has become the common language for communication and the mother tongue has been reduced to home usage within the Khvarshi community. The Khvarshi language has been little researched. The first records of the language were made by R. Erckert at the end of the 19th century. During the past 50 years it has been studied more seriously by E. Bokareva, D. Lomaishvili and E. Lomadze.