THE IMPACT OF RUSSIAN ON BEZHTA AND KHWARSHI

The paper deals with the impact of Russian on Bezhta and Khwarshi (Nakh-Daghes- tanian languages). It presents the language changes that are presumably induced by language contact with Russian, which is an official and everyday language in the republic of Daghestan. The influence of Russian is evident on phonology, morphosyntax and lexicon. The most evident change is the gradual loss of the secondary articulation features, which are denasalization and delabialization. The paper also discuss the study on acquiring nominal classes among young Bezhta speakers, as well as the analysis of word order in relatively early and new Bezhta texts. The study on code-switching in the speech of several Bezhta speakers includes the use of Russian conjunctions, the use of Russian infinitives as lexical parts in compound verbs. The Russian insertions, namely nouns, get inflected for number, case and are assigned to the nominal classes just like native nouns. The paper also gives an overview of the Bezhta lexicon and borrowings from Russian.