Kaitag Dictionary

Source repository for a bilingual (English/Russian) dictionary of Kaitag, a Northeast Caucasian language spoken in Dagestan.

Browse the dictionary at urssivar.com/language/dictionary.

Status & Roadmap

v1.1 (in progress): enriching entries with examples and cross-references, normalizing structure, improving tooling.

• Letter а: complete (~175 entries)
• Remaining letters: in progress — priority is capturing meanings and examples while speaker access is available

Future: proper dialect variant entries; tag taxonomy improvements; analysis and stats scripts; lexicographic structure review after consulting reference literature

Entry Format

Lexemes live in lexicon/[letter]/, one YAML file per entry named after its headword (e.g. абаба.yaml). Homonyms: аккор.yaml, аккор-2.yaml. Fields in four blocks separated by blank lines:

# Block 1: Identity
id: YkZtiqCYGrbTzESn1sZW # required; generate with command
headword: абаба # required; default citation form
ipa: abaˈba
tags: [n]
forms:
  - text: абабне
    gloss: pl

# Block 2: Definitions
definitions: # required; one or more senses
  - translation:
      en: maternal grandmother
      ru: бабушка по матери
    tags: [kinship]
    examples:
      - text: Дами дила абаба риччихид.
        translation:
          en: I love my grandmother.
          ru: Я люблю мою бабушку.

# Block 3: About
etymology:
  en: Reduplication of *аба* "mother" (cf. *аттаба* "paternal grandmother").
  ru: Редупликация *аба* "мама" (ср. *аттаба* "бабушка по отцу").

# Block 4: Links
variants: [авба, бавба]
derived_from: [уба]
see_also: [аттаба]

Reference tables in meta/ include the tag taxonomy (tags.yaml) and alphabet with IPA mappings (alphabet.yaml).

See EDITORIAL_GUIDELINES.md for all authoring rules and ORTHOGRAPHY.md for spelling conventions.

Setup

Install the YAML by Red Hat VSCode extension — the schema at .vscode/lexeme-schema.json provides autocomplete and validation for all lexicon/**/*.yaml files.

Claude Code with the lexeme-polish skill can assist with entry review, but all review decisions remain with the author.

Python scripts in scripts/ handle validation and export, driven by d.py at the project root.

python d.py new <headword>      # create a new entry file
python d.py validate [а б]      # validate entries
python d.py export              # create files to export/

License

Content under CC BY-SA 4.0, Code under MIT.

When using the dictionary data, cite as:

Magomedov, M., & Gasanova, U. (2026). Kaitag Dictionary [Data set]. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. https://github.com/urssivar/dictionary