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Northeast Caucasian languages

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In linguistics , a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. Typically, a stem remains unmodified during inflection with few exceptions due to apophony (for example in Polish , miast-o ("city") and w mieść-e ("in the city"); in English, sing , sang , and sung , where it can be modified according to morphological rules or peculiarities, such as sandhi )

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74-824: The Northeast Caucasian languages , also called East Caucasian , Nakh-Daghestani or Vainakh-Daghestani , or sometimes Caspian languages (from the Caspian Sea , in contrast to Pontic languages for the Northwest Caucasian languages ), is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan , Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as in Georgia and diaspora populations in Western Europe and

148-704: A cave in Georgia. Discoveries in the Hotu cave and the adjacent Kamarband cave , near the town of Behshahr , Mazandaran south of the Caspian in Iran, suggest human habitation of the area as early as 11,000 years ago. Ancient Greeks focused on the civilization on the south shore – they call it the (H)yr(c/k)anian Sea ( Ancient Greek : Υρκανία θάλαττα , with sources noting the latter word was evolving then to today's Thelessa : late Ancient Greek : θάλασσα ). Hafiz-i Abru ,

222-652: A corresponding agreement prefix, which can attach to verbs or adjectives of that noun. Prefixes may also have plural forms, used in agreement with a plural noun. The following table shows the noun–adjective agreement paradigm in the Tsez language. Ø-igu I. AGR . SG -good aħo shepherd Ø-igu aħo I.AGR.SG-good shepherd Good shepherd y-igu II . AGR . SG -good baru wife y-igu baru II.AGR.SG-good wife Good wife b-igu III . AGR . SG -good ʕomoy donkey b-igu ʕomoy III.AGR.SG-good donkey Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea

296-470: A distinction between singular and plural , plurality itself may impact the class to which a noun belongs. In some cases, a grammatical collective is seen. Many languages distinguish local versus functional cases, and to some degree also casus rectus versus casus obliquus . The inflectional paradigms are often based on partially classifying productive stem extensions ( absolutive and oblique , ergative and genitive inflection.) Localization

370-567: A fall in sea level . The Caspian Sea was a comparatively small endorheic lake during the Pliocene , but its surface area increased fivefold around the time of the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition. During warm and dry climatic periods, the landlocked sea almost dried up, depositing evaporitic sediments like halite that were covered by wind-blown deposits and were sealed off as an evaporite sink when cool, wet climates refilled

444-683: A fourteenth century Timurid Empire geographer, recorded that the destruction of the Oxus river dam and irrigation works diverted the river flow towards the Caspian Sea, which caused the Aral sea to nearly disappear. Later, in the Tang dynasty (618–907), the sea was the western limit of the Chinese Empire. The area is rich in fossil fuels . Oil wells were being dug in the region as early as

518-636: A primary division of the family into Nakh and Dagestanian branches, a view which is no longer widely accepted, or Dagestanian can subsume the entire family. The rare term North Caspian (as in bordering the Caspian Sea) is only used in opposition to the use of North Pontic (as in bordering the Black Sea) for the Northwest Caucasian languages. Historically, Northeast Caucasian phonemic inventories were thought to be smaller than those of

592-488: A result of the petrochemical industry; this has significantly decreased the number of species of marine birds in the area. Existing and planned oil and gas pipelines under the sea further increase the potential threat to the environment. The high concentration of mud volcanoes under the Caspian Sea were thought to be the cause of a fire that broke out 75 kilometers from Baku on July 5, 2021. The State oil company of Azerbaijan SOCAR said preliminary information indicated it

666-418: A single grammatical case known as the absolutive. Subjects of transitive sentences, however, carry a different marking to indicate that they belong to a separate case, known as the ergative. This distinction can be seen in the following two Archi sentences. Objects and subjects of intransitive sentences carry no suffix, which is represented by the null suffix, - ∅ . Meanwhile, agents of transitive sentences take

740-484: Is a wholly freshwater species. The zebra mussel is native to the Caspian and Black Sea basins, but has become an invasive species elsewhere, when introduced. The area has given its name to several species, including the Caspian gull and the Caspian tern . The Caspian seal ( Pusa caspica ) is the only aquatic mammal endemic to the Caspian Sea, being one of very few seal species that live in inland waters, but it

814-521: Is also notable for its use of numerous secondary articulations as contrastive features. Whereas English consonant classes are divided into voiced and voiceless phonemes, Northeast Caucasian languages are known to contrast voiced, voiceless, ejective and tense phones , which contributes to their large phonemic inventories. Some languages also include palatalization and labialization as contrastive features. Most languages in this family contrast tense and weak consonants. Tense consonants are characterized by

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888-462: Is called suppletion . An example of a suppletive paradigm is the paradigm for the adjective good : its stem changes from good to the bound morpheme bet- . Both in Latin and Greek , the declension (inflection) of some nouns uses a different stem in the oblique cases than in the nominative and vocative singular cases. Such words belong to, respectively, the so-called third declension of

962-406: Is cited with the infinitive inflection ( correr ) and always appears in actual speech as a non-finite (infinitive or participle) or conjugated form. Such morphemes that cannot occur on their own in this way are usually referred to as bound morphemes . In computational linguistics , the term "stem" is used for the part of the word that never changes, even morphologically, when inflected, and a lemma

1036-405: Is different from those inhabiting freshwaters due to the hydrological environment of the sea. A century ago the Caspian was home to more than one million seals . Today, fewer than 10% remain. Archeological studies of Gobustan Rock Art have identified what may be oceanic species including cetaceans from baleen whales to dolphins , and auks most likely Brunnich's Guillemot , although

1110-675: Is divided into three distinct physical regions: the Northern, Middle, and Southern Caspian. The Northern–Middle boundary is the Mangyshlak Threshold, which runs through Chechen Island and Cape Tiub-Karagan. The Middle–Southern boundary is the Apsheron Threshold , a sill of tectonic origin between the Eurasian continent and an oceanic remnant, that runs through Zhiloi Island and Cape Kuuli. The Garabogazköl Bay

1184-432: Is mostly conveyed by postpositions , but it can be also partly based on preverbs . Noun phrases exhibit incomplete class agreement , group inflection (on the noun) with partial attributive oblique marking, which may, in turn, carry a partially determining function. Verbs do not agree with person , with a few exceptions like Lak , in which first and second persons are marked with the same suffix and verbs agree with

1258-551: Is predicted that during the 21st century, the depth of the sea will decrease by 9–18 m (30–60 ft) due to global warming and the process of desertification , leading to an ecocide . The sea's name stems from Caspi , the ancient people who lived to the southwest of the sea in Transcaucasia . Strabo (died circa AD 24) wrote that "to the country of the Albanians ( Caucasian Albania , not to be confused with

1332-440: Is the base form of the word. For example, given the word "produced", its lemma (linguistics) is "produce", but the stem is "produc-" because of the inflected form "producing". A list of all the inflected forms of a word stem is called its inflectional paradigm. The paradigm of the adjective tall is given below, and the stem of this adjective is tall . Some paradigms do not make use of the same stem throughout; this phenomenon

1406-453: Is the saline eastern inlet of the Caspian, which is part of Turkmenistan and at times has been a lake in its own right due to the isthmus that cuts it off from the Caspian. Differences between the three regions are dramatic. The Northern Caspian only includes the Caspian shelf, and is very shallow; it accounts for less than 1% of the total water volume with an average depth of only 5–6 m (16–20 ft). The sea noticeably drops off towards

1480-585: Is the world's largest inland body of water , described as the world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea . An endorheic basin , it lies between Europe and Asia : east of the Caucasus , west of the broad steppe of Central Asia , south of the fertile plains of Southern Russia in Eastern Europe , and north of the mountainous Iranian Plateau . It covers a surface area of 371,000 km (143,000 sq mi) (excluding

1554-570: The Khazar sea : Turkmen : Hazar deňzi ; Azerbaijani : Xəzər dənizi , Turkish : Hazar Denizi . In all these the first word refers to the historical Khazar Khaganate , a large empire based to the north of the Caspian Sea between the 7th and 10th centuries. In Iran, the lake is referred to as the Mazandaran Sea ( Persian : دریای مازندران ), after the historic Mazandaran Province at its southern shores. Old Russian sources use

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1628-683: The Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences estimated that the level of the sea was dropping by more than six centimetres per year due to increased evaporation due to rising temperatures caused by climate change . The Volga River , the longest river in Europe, drains 20% of the European land area and is the source of 80% of the Caspian's inflow. Heavy development in its lower reaches has caused numerous unregulated releases of chemical and biological pollutants. The UN Environment Programme warns that

1702-711: The Black Sea . In the late Pontian stage , a mountain arch rose across the south basin and divided it into the Khachmaz and Lankaran Lakes (or early Balaxani ). The period of restriction to the south basin was reversed during the Akchagylian – the lake became more than three times its size today and took again the first of a series of contacts with the Black Sea and Aral Sea . A recession of Lake Akchagyl completed stage one. The earliest hominid remains found around

1776-630: The Khvalyn or Khvalis Sea ( Хвалынское море / Хвалисское море ) after the name of Khwarezmia . Among Greeks and Persians in classical antiquity it was the Hyrcanian ocean. Renaissance European maps labelled it as the Abbacuch Sea (Oronce Fine's 1531 world map), Mar de Bachu (Ortellius' 1570 map), or Mar de Sala (the Mercator 1569 world map ). It was also sometimes called

1850-576: The Middle East . According to Glottolog , there are currently 36 Nakh-Dagestanian languages. Several names have been in use for this family. The most common term, Northeast Caucasian , contrasts the three established families of the Caucasian languages: Northeast Caucasian , Northwest Caucasian (Abkhaz–Adyghean) and South Caucasian ( Kartvelian ). This may be shortened to East Caucasian . The term Nakh(o)-Dagestanian can be taken to reflect

1924-428: The P argument , and Hunzib in which verbs agree with A argument . Evidentiality is prominent, with reported, sensory and epistemic moods all appearing as a way of conveying the evidence. Epistemic modality is often tied to the tense. Most Northeast Caucasian languages exhibit an ergative–absolutive morphology . This means that objects of transitive sentences and subjects of intransitive sentences both fall into

1998-670: The Uzboy River , as did the Syr Darya farther north. The Caspian has several small islands, primarily located in the north with a collective land area of roughly 2,000 km (770 sq mi). Adjacent to the North Caspian is the Caspian Depression , a low-lying region 27 m (89 ft) below sea level . The Central Asian steppes stretch across the northeast coast, while the Caucasus mountains hug

2072-484: The Volga , enters at the shallow north end. Two deep basins form its central and southern zones. These lead to horizontal differences in temperature, salinity, and ecology. The seabed in the south reaches 1,023 m (3,356 ft) below sea level, which is the third-lowest natural non-oceanic depression on Earth after Baikal and Tanganyika lakes. Written accounts from the ancient inhabitants of its coast perceived

2146-553: The tidal areas of the Volga delta and riparian forests of the Samur River delta. The shoreline is also a unique refuge for plants adapted to the loose sands of the Central Asian Deserts . The principal limiting factors to successful establishment of plant species are hydrological imbalances within the surrounding deltas, water pollution , and various land reclamation activities. The water level change within

2220-401: The twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russia's extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it the second leading producer of oil and natural gas globally. Caspian littoral states join efforts to develop infrastructure, tourism and trade in the region. The first Caspian Economic Forum

2294-411: The 10th century to reach oil "for use in everyday life, both for medicinal purposes and for heating and lighting in homes". By the 16th century, Europeans were aware of the rich oil and gas deposits locally. English traders Thomas Bannister and Jeffrey Duckett described the area around Baku as "a strange thing to behold, for there issueth out of the ground a marvelous quantity of oil, which serveth all

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2368-433: The Black Sea basin or widespread Palearctic species such as crucian carp , Prussian carp , common carp , common bream , common bleak , asp , white bream , sunbleak , common dace , common roach , common rudd , European chub , sichel , tench , European weatherfish , wels catfish , northern pike , burbot , European perch and zander . Almost 30 non-indigenous, introduced fish species have been reported from

2442-515: The Caspian "suffers from an enormous burden of pollution from oil extraction and refining, offshore oil fields, radioactive wastes from nuclear power plants and huge volumes of untreated sewage and industrial waste introduced mainly by the Volga River". The magnitude of fossil fuel extraction and transport activity in the Caspian also poses a risk to the environment. The island of Vulf off Baku , for example, has suffered ecological damage as

2516-492: The Caspian Sea are from Dmanisi dating back to around 1.8 Ma and yielded a number of skeletal remains of Homo erectus or Homo ergaster . More later evidence for human occupation of the region came from a number of caves in Georgia and Azerbaijan such as Kudaro and Azykh Caves . There is evidence for Lower Palaeolithic human occupation south of the Caspian from western Alburz. These are Ganj Par and Darband Cave sites. Neanderthal remains also have been discovered at

2590-470: The Caspian Sea as an ocean, probably because of its salinity and large size. With a surface area of 371,000 square kilometres (143,000 sq mi), the Caspian Sea is nearly five times as big as Lake Superior (82,000 square kilometres (32,000 sq mi)). The Caspian Sea is home to a wide range of species and is famous for its caviar and oil industries. Pollution from the oil industry and dams on rivers that drain into it have harmed its ecology. It

2664-725: The Caspian Sea is an indirect reason for which plants may not get established. These affect aquatic plants of the Volga Delta, such as Aldrovanda vesiculosa and the native Nelumbo caspica . About 11 plant species are found in the Samur River delta, including the unique liana forests that date back to the Tertiary period . Since 2019 UNESCO has admitted the lush Hyrcanian forests of Mazandaran , Iran as World Heritage Site under category (ix). The Caspian turtle ( Mauremys caspica ), although found in neighboring areas,

2738-434: The Caspian Sea, but only a few have become established. Six sturgeon species, the Russian , bastard , Persian , sterlet , starry and beluga , are native to the Caspian Sea. The last of these is arguably the largest freshwater fish in the world . The sturgeon yield roe (eggs) that are processed into caviar . Overfishing has depleted a number of the historic fisheries. In recent years, overfishing has threatened

2812-431: The Caspian region economies are highly dependent on this type of mineral wealth. The world energy markets were influenced by Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, as they became strategically crucial in this sphere, thus attracting the largest share of foreign direct investment (FDI). All of the countries are rich in solar energy and harnessing potential, with the highest rainfall much less than the mountains of central Europe in

2886-641: The Kumyk Sea and Tarki Sea (derived from the name of the Kumyks and their historical capital Tarki ). The Caspian Sea is at its South Caspian Basin , like the Black Sea , a remnant of the ancient Paratethys Sea . Its seafloor is, therefore, a standard oceanic basalt and not a continental granite body. It is estimated to be about 30 million years old, and became landlocked in the Late Miocene , about 5.5 million years ago, due to tectonic uplift and

2960-640: The Latin grammar and the so-called third declension of the Ancient Greek grammar. For example, the genitive singular is formed by adding -is (Latin) or -ος (Greek) to the oblique stem, and the genitive singular is conventionally listed in Greek and Latin dictionaries to illustrate the oblique. English words derived from Latin or Greek often involve the oblique stem: adip ose , altitudin al , andr oid , and mathemat ics . Historically,

3034-531: The Middle Caspian, where the average depth is 190 m (620 ft). The Southern Caspian is the deepest, with oceanic depths of over 1,000 m (3,300 ft), greatly exceeding the depth of other regional seas, such as the Persian Gulf . The Middle and Southern Caspian account for 33% and 66% of the total water volume, respectively. The northern portion of the Caspian Sea typically freezes in

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3108-529: The Protection of the Caspian Sea against Pollution from Land-based Sources in order to ensure better protection for the biodiversity of the Caspian Sea. The rising level of the Caspian Sea between 1995 and 1996 reduced the number of habitats for rare species of aquatic vegetation. This has been attributed to a general lack of seeding material in newly formed coastal lagoons and water bodies. Many rare and endemic plant species of Russia are associated with

3182-641: The amount of North Atlantic depressions that reach the interior, and they in turn are affected by cycles of the North Atlantic oscillation . Thus levels in the Caspian Sea relate to atmospheric conditions in the North Atlantic, thousands of kilometres to the northwest. The last short-term sea-level cycle started with a sea-level fall of 3 m (10 ft) from 1929 to 1977, followed by a rise of 3 m (10 ft) from 1977 until 1995. Since then smaller oscillations have taken place. A study by

3256-584: The basin. (Comparable evaporite beds underlie the Mediterranean .) Due to the current inflow of fresh water in the north, the Caspian Sea water is almost fresh in its northern portions, getting more brackish toward the south. It is most saline on the Iranian shore, where the catchment basin contributes little flow. Currently, the mean salinity of the Caspian is one third that of Earth's oceans. The Garabogazköl lagoon , which dried up when water flow from

3330-559: The coasts, but none in the deeper parts of the sea. Ogurja Ada is the largest island. The island is 37 km (23 mi) long, with gazelles roaming freely on it. In the North Caspian, the majority of the islands are small and uninhabited, like the Tyuleniy Archipelago , an Important Bird Area (IBA). The climate of the Caspian Sea is variable, with the cold desert climate (BWk), cold semi-arid climate (BSk), and humid continental climate (Dsa, Dfa) being present in

3404-480: The country of Albania ) belongs also the territory called Caspiane, which was named after the Caspian tribe, as was also the sea; but the tribe has now disappeared". Moreover, the Caspian Gates , part of Iran 's Tehran province , may evince such people migrated to the south. The Iranian city of Qazvin shares the root of its name with this common name for the sea. The traditional and medieval Arabic name for

3478-475: The country to burn in their houses. This oil is black and is called nefte . There is also by the town of Baku, another kind of oil which is white and very precious [i.e., petroleum ]." Today, oil and gas platforms abound along the edges of the sea. During the rule of Peter I the Great , Fedor I. Soimonov was a pioneering explorer of the sea. He was a hydrographer who charted and greatly expanded knowledge of

3552-486: The current Caspian Sea and either the Arctic Ocean or North Sea , or the Black Sea . This is supported by the existences of current endemic, oceanic species such as lagoon cockles which was genetically identified to originate in the Caspian and Black Seas regions. The sea's basin (including associated waters such as rivers) has 160 native species and subspecies of fish in more than 60 genera . About 62% of

3626-435: The difference in stems arose due to sound changes in the nominative. In the Latin third declension, for example, the nominative singular suffix -s is combined with a stem-final consonant. If that consonant was c , the result was x (a mere orthographic change), while if it was g , the -s caused it to devoice , again resulting in x . If the stem-final consonant was another alveolar consonant ( t, d, r ), it elided before

3700-699: The ergative suffix, -mu. buwa-∅ Mother-∅ d-irxːin II . SG -work buwa-∅ d-irxːin Mother-∅ II.SG-work Mother works. buwa-mu mother- ERG xːalli-∅ bread-∅ b-ar-ši III . SG -bake- PROG b-i II . SG - AUX buwa-mu xːalli-∅ b-ar-ši b-i mother-ERG bread-∅ III.SG-bake-PROG II.SG-AUX Mother is baking the bread. Northeast Caucasian languages have between two and eight noun classes. In these languages, nouns are grouped into grammatical categories depending on certain semantic qualities, such as animacy and gender. Each noun class has

3774-586: The fish stocks, since it targets reproductive females. Reptiles native to the region include the spur-thighed tortoise ( Testudo graeca buxtoni ) and Horsfield's tortoise . The main geologic history locally had two stages. The first is the Miocene , determined by tectonic events that correlate with the closing of the Tethys Sea . The second is the Pleistocene noted for its glaciation cycles and

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3848-656: The full run of the present Volga. During the first stage, the Tethys Sea had evolved into the Sarmatian Lake, that was created from the modern Black Sea and south Caspian, when the collision of the Arabian peninsula with West Asia pushed up the Kopet Dag and Caucasus Mountains , lasting south and west limits to the basin. This orogenic movement was continuous, while the Caspian was regularly disconnected from

3922-418: The highly saline lagoon of Garabogazköl to its east), an area approximately equal to that of Japan , with a volume of 78,200 km (19,000 cu mi). It has a salinity of approximately 1.2% (12 g/L), about a third of the salinity of average seawater . It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the southwest, Iran to the south, and Turkmenistan to

3996-405: The history of languages and language families . The term is used with slightly different meanings depending on the morphology of the language in question. In Athabaskan linguistics , for example, a verb stem is a root that cannot appear on its own and that carries the tone of the word. By attaching the morpheme -ship to the root word friend (which some linguists call a stem, too),

4070-487: The inflow) and the Ural River discharge into the Caspian Sea, but it has no natural outflow other than by evaporation . Thus the Caspian ecosystem is a closed basin , with its own sea level history that is independent of the eustatic level of the world's oceans. The sea level of the Caspian has fallen and risen, often rapidly, many times over the centuries. Some Russian historians, such as Lev Gumilev , claim that

4144-878: The intensiveness of articulation, which naturally leads to a lengthening of these consonants. In contrast to the generally large consonant inventories of Northeast Caucasian languages, most languages in the family have relatively few vowels, although more on average than the Northwest Caucasian languages. However, there are some exceptions to this trend, such as Chechen , which has at least twenty-eight vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs. Percentage of Northeast Caucasian languages by speakers These languages can be characterized by strong suffixal agglutination . Weak tendencies towards inflection may be noted as well. Nouns display covert nominal classification , but partially overt cases of secondary origin can be observed too. The number of noun classes in individual languages range from two to eight. Regarding grammatical number , there may be

4218-440: The main body of the Caspian was blocked in the 1980s but has since been restored, routinely exceeds oceanic salinity by a factor of 10. The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world by area and accounts for 40–44% of the total lake waters of the world, and covers an area larger than Germany . The coastlines of the Caspian are shared by Azerbaijan , Iran , Kazakhstan , Russia , and Turkmenistan . The Caspian

4292-453: The mountains of the west, which are also rich in hydroelectricity sources. Iran has high fossil fuel energy potential. It has reserves of 137.5 billion barrels of crude oil , the fourth largest in the world, producing around four million barrels a day. Iran has an estimated 988.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas , around 16 percent of world reserves, thus key to current paradigms in global energy security. Russia's economy ranks as

4366-463: The neighboring Northwest Caucasian family . However, more recent research has revealed that many Northeast Caucasian languages are much more phoneme-rich than previously believed, with some languages containing as many as 70 consonants. In addition to numerous front obstruents, many Northeast Caucasian languages also possess a number of back consonants, including uvulars , pharyngeals , and glottal stops and fricatives. Northeast Caucasian phonology

4440-444: The new word friendship was synthesized. While an s can be attached to friendship to form friendships , it can not be attached to the root within it to form friendsship . A stem is a base from which all its inflected variants are formed. For example, the stabil- (a variant of stable unable to stand alone) is the root of the destabilized , while the stem consists of de·stabil·ize , including de- and -ize . The -(e)d , on

4514-524: The northern portions of the Caspian Sea, while the Mediterranean climate (Csa) and humid subtropical climate (Cfa) are present in the southern portions of the Caspian Sea. The Caspian has characteristics common to both seas and lakes. It is often listed as the world's largest lake, although it is not freshwater : the 1.2% salinity classes it with brackish water bodies. It contains about 3.5 times as much water, by volume, as all five of North America's Great Lakes combined. The Volga River (about 80% of

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4588-425: The other hand, is not part of the stem. Stem may either consist of a root (e.g. run ) alone or a compound word , such as meatball and bottleneck (examples of compound nouns) or blacken and standardize (examples of compound verbs). The stem of the verb to wait is wait : it is the part that is common to all its inflected variants. In languages with very little inflection, such as English and Chinese ,

4662-518: The rising of the Caspian in the 10th century caused the coastal towns of Khazaria to flood, resulting in the Khazars losing approximately two-thirds of their territory due to flooding. Over the centuries, Caspian Sea levels have changed in synchrony with the estimated discharge of the Volga, which in turn depends on rainfall levels in its vast catchment basin. Precipitation is related to variations in

4736-470: The rock art on Kichikdash Mountain which is assumed to depict either a beaked whale or a dolphin , it may represent the famous beluga sturgeon instead due to its size (430 cm in length). These petroglyphs may suggest potential presences of oceanic faunas in the Caspian Sea presumably until the Quaternary or even the last glacial period or antiquity due to historic marine inflow between

4810-746: The sea was Baḥr ('sea') Khazar , but in recent centuries the common and standard name in Arabic language has become بحر قزوين Baḥr Qazvin , the Arabized form of Caspian. In modern Russian language, it is known as Russian : Каспи́йское мо́ре , Kaspiyskoye more . Some Turkic ethnic groups refer to it with the Caspi(an) descriptor; in Kazakh it is called Каспий теңізі , Kaspiy teñizi , Kyrgyz : Каспий деңизи , romanized :  Kaspiy deñizi , Uzbek : Kaspiy dengizi . Others refer to it as

4884-496: The sea. He drew a set of four maps and wrote Pilot of the Caspian Sea , the first lengthy report and modern maps. These were published in 1720 by the Russian Academy of Sciences . Countries in the Caspian region, particularly Azerbaijan , Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan , have high-value natural-resource-based economies, where the oil and gas compose more than 10 percent of their GDP and 40 percent of their exports. All

4958-403: The southeast. The name of the Caspian sea is derived from the ancient Iranic Caspi people. The sea stretches 1,200 km (750 mi) from north to south, with an average width of 320 km (200 mi). Its gross coverage is 386,400 km (149,200 sq mi) and the surface is about 27 m (89 ft) below sea level . Its main freshwater inflow , Europe's longest river,

5032-905: The species and subspecies are endemic , as are 4–6 genera (depending on taxonomic treatment). The lake proper has 115 natives, including 73 endemics (63.5%). Among the more than 50 genera in the lake proper, 3–4 are endemic: Anatirostrum , Caspiomyzon , Chasar (often included in Ponticola ) and Hyrcanogobius . By far the most numerous families in the lake proper are gobies (35 species and subspecies), cyprinids (32) and clupeids (22). Two particularly rich genera are Alosa with 18 endemic species/subspecies and Benthophilus with 16 endemic species. Other examples of endemics are four species of Clupeonella , Gobio volgensis , two Rutilus , three Sabanejewia , Stenodus leucichthys , two Salmo , two Mesogobius and three Neogobius . Most non-endemic natives are either shared with

5106-459: The stem is usually not distinct from the "normal" form of the word (the lemma, citation, or dictionary form). However, in other languages, word stems may rarely or never occur on their own. For example, the English verb stem run is indistinguishable from its present tense form (except in the third person singular). However, the equivalent Spanish verb stem corr- never appears as such because it

5180-421: The sturgeon population to the point that environmentalists advocate banning sturgeon fishing completely until the population recovers. The high price of sturgeon caviar – more than 1,500 Azerbaijani manats (US$ 880 as of April 2019 ) per kilo – allows fishermen to afford bribes to ensure the authorities look the other way, making regulations in many locations ineffective. Caviar harvesting further endangers

5254-402: The western shore. The biomes to both the north and east are characterized by cold, continental deserts. Conversely, the climate to the southwest and south are generally warm with uneven elevation due to a mix of highlands and mountain ranges ; the drastic changes in climate alongside the Caspian have led to a great deal of biodiversity in the region. The Caspian Sea has numerous islands near

5328-581: The winter, and in the coldest winters ice forms in the south as well. Over 130 rivers provide inflow to the Caspian, the Volga River being the largest. A second affluent, the Ural River , flows in from the north, and the Kura River from the west. In the past, the Amu Darya (Oxus) of Central Asia in the east often changed course to empty into the Caspian through a now-desiccated riverbed called

5402-458: Was a mud volcano which spewed both mud and flammable gas. It is calculated that during the 21st century, the water level of the Caspian Sea will decrease by 9–18 m (30–60 ft) due to the acceleration of evaporation due to global warming and the process of desertification , causing an ecocide . On October 23, 2021, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the Protocol for

5476-470: Was convened on August 12, 2019, in Turkmenistan and brought together representatives of Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran and that state. It hosted several meetings of their ministers of economy and transport. Word stem Uncovering and analyzing cognation between word stems and roots within and across languages has allowed comparative philology and comparative linguistics to determine

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