The Tsez Alphabet

Tsez (also called Dido) is an endangered Northeast Caucasian language spoken by approximately 6,000–15,000 people in the Tsunta District of western Dagestan, Russia. The name "Dido" comes from the historic region name for the Tsunta area.

The language lacks official status in Dagestan and most written communication by Tsez speakers is done in Russian or Avar, the major regional lingua franca of western Dagestan.

Yes — Tsez and Dido are two names for the same language. "Dido" is an older name used in Russian and older Western linguistic literature, derived from the historic name for the Tsunta District region of western Dagestan.

"Tsez" is the name the speakers use for themselves (цезский, from цез meaning "eagle" in some traditions). Both names share the same ISO 639-3 code: ddo. Modern linguistic works generally prefer "Tsez" following the speakers' own preference.

Tsez belongs to the Tsezic branch of the Northeast Caucasian (Nakh-Dagestanian) family ^[1]. The Tsezic branch — sometimes called the Didoic branch — includes five closely related languages: Tsez, Hinukh, Bezhta, Hunzib, and Khwarshi.

All five Tsezic languages are spoken in the Tsunta District and adjacent areas of western Dagestan, Russia. The Tsezic branch is distinct from the Lezgic branch (Tabasaran, Agul, Lezgi) in the south and the Avar-Andic branch further north.

Tsez is classified as endangered by linguists and language researchers. With only 6,000–15,000 speakers concentrated in a small mountain district of western Dagestan, the language has no official status and limited educational support.

Most Tsez speakers are bilingual in Russian and many younger community members also speak Avar, the dominant language of western Dagestan. Without active intergenerational transmission, the language faces long-term risk of decline.

Like most Northeast Caucasian languages, Tsez has a system of grammatical gender classes — categories that all nouns belong to, affecting how verbs and adjectives agree with them ^[1]. In Tsez, there are typically 2–4 gender classes.

These classes are based historically on natural gender (human vs. non-human, animate vs. inanimate) but have become grammaticalized. The class of a noun determines the prefix or suffix that appears on verbs and adjectives in the sentence.

Tsez is written in a modified Cyrillic script ^[2]. The script uses standard Cyrillic letters supplemented by the palochka (Ӏ, U+04C0) for ejective consonants and digraphs with ъ and ь for uvular and pharyngeal sounds.

Tsez had no standardized orthography before Soviet-era efforts. A Cyrillic-based writing system was developed in the 20th century, though literacy in Tsez remains lower than in Russian among community members.

Tsez uses five ejective consonants marked by the palochka (Ӏ): КӀ (ejective K), ТӀ (ejective T), ПӀ (ejective P), ЦӀ (ejective TS), and ЧӀ (ejective CH) ^[2].

There is also an ejective uvular КкӀ — an ejective produced at the uvula, deep in the throat. Ejective consonants are produced with a glottal pop simultaneous with the oral release, giving Tsez speech a sharp, percussive quality foreign to most European ears.

Within the Northeast Caucasian family, Tsez is most closely related to the other four Tsezic languages: Hinukh, Bezhta, Hunzib, and Khwarshi — all spoken in the same Tsunta District area ^[1].

Tsez is more distantly related to the Lezgic languages (Tabasaran, Agul, Lezgi) of southern Dagestan and to the Avar-Andic languages of the wider northeast Caucasus. Tsez is not related to Georgian (a Kartvelian language) or Armenian (Indo-European), despite geographic proximity.