The essentials of survival




There's much more to any language than exchange of greetings and small talk. Here you'll find ways of expressing your bad feelings in Lezgi. I do hope you will never need to do so, but it is better to be prepared, ain't it ?

How to tell that you dislike someone strongly

First, two commonest insults, first one is universal - кицIин хва means simply "son of a bitch" while the second, ламран хва is more interesting (do you say "son of the donkey" in your language ? that's what it means) Alternatively you may be more talkative and say something like вун аквадай зи вилер авахьрай, which means roughly, "seeing you I wish my eyes were blind". Quite nice, huh ?

How to tell you don't believe in someone's words

"That's a lie" would be simply ам таб я !, "don't lie to me" is заз таб мир and таб квай кицIин хва means, you've guessed it, "lying s.o.b."

How to express your low opinion about someone's IQ

The Lezgi words for "idiot" are ахмакь (a loan with roots in Arabic), and кимиди (a native word lit. "the deficient one"). If you don't want to be that harsh you can say акьулсуз (mindless) instead

How to tell someone that you wouldn't like him to stay with you.

The first one is just a question ви ина вуч азар авайди я ? - what the hell you're doing here ?
If the veiled message was not understood, go on and say ина ви азар авач, алад, кими кас ! - you have nothing to do here, go away, idiot !, or, even more directly, квахь иналай- disappear from here !

How to tell someone that you don't like his or hers negative attitude

If someone's unexpected (and/or uncalled for) ваъ ('no' in Lezgi) just ruined your plans and annoyed you, you might want to answer вакъаммакъ ! This can hardly be translated into English - an approximate would be "Let your 'no' bang you in the head". A similar answer to someone's туш ('no, it is not') is тIуш гуй ваз – "Let you be trampled down!". Quite obviously it bases on sound similarity between туш and тIуш.

How to (un)kindly ask people to stop bothering you and shut up

The simplest way is киса, "shut up", you can add some emphasis by saying киса, кас !. Alternative ways - ван мир ! "don't you make a sound" ван атIут ! "cut your voice" or ви сес атIуй ! "let your voice be cut" the last one is also used to wish someone's death, and thus we proceed to the most interesting part of this survival kit:

How to curse


"to curse" in Lezgi is лянат гун and some of the Lezgi curses are more than elaborate... take гурба-гур хьуй, for instance - it expresses the wish that the person being cursed will not find peace in his/her grave... за гайи фу ви вилерай хтурай - is used when someone has been ungrateful and means "let the bread I fed you go back out through your eyes".. ... къван хьуй вун is relatively simple - "let you be turned to stone"... person being cursed usually curses back, saying ажал, which means "death" or кьиникь - "you die"

pluję na ciebie - cyk'yn wehin


What are you looking at ? Get lost ! By the way, feel free to send me any insults you know.


I owe this page, as I owe everything, to K.D. , whose smile makes the impossible happen