Kaitag language
| Kaitag | |
|---|---|
| Kaidak, Karakaitak, Karkaidak, Qaidaqlan | |
| хайдакьан кув | |
| A speaker of Kaitag. | |
| Pronunciation | [χɑjdɑqʼɑn kʰuβ] [χajdaq’la] | 
| Native to | North Caucasus | 
| Region | Dagestan | 
| Ethnicity | Kaitags | 
| Native speakers | approx. 30,000 (2020) | 
| Northeast Caucasian
 
 | |
| Dialects | 
 | 
| Cyrillic script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xdq | 
| Glottolog | kajt1238 | 
|   Kaitag | |
Kaitag (Kaitag: Хайдакьан кув [χɑjdɑqʼɑn kʰuβ]; also Kaidak, Karakaitak, Karkaidak, Qaidaqlan) is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken in Dagestan, Russia. It has sometimes been considered a divergent dialect of Dargwa due to it being part of the Dargin dialect continuum. The Routledge Ethnographic Handbook (2017) divided Kaitag into two dialects: northern (Magalis-Kaitak) and southern (Karakaitak). Recent results of the Association of the Russian Sociolinguists (2021) further developed it into three dialects: Lower Kaitag, Upper Kaitag and Shari, the latter of which may be a separate but closely related language.