ארצ׳י

Archi (Аршаттен чӀат Aršatten Tʼat) is a Northeast Caucasian language isolated within the Lezgic branch — it does not cluster with Lezgian-Tabasaran-Tsakhur, Aghul, or any other Lezgic subgroup, occupying its own taxonomic position. Spoken by ~1,000 people in the single village of Archi (Charoda District, Daghestan), Archi is famous in linguistic literature for having one of the most morphologically complex inflectional systems documented: Kibrik's 1977 reference grammar calculated up to 1.5 million possible verb forms per single root through combination of TAM markers, polypersonal agreement, evidentiality, and modality. The Archi consonant inventory includes ~70 phonemes with extensive use of pharyngealization and ejectives.