Mikailov Sh.I. Essays on Avar Dialectology (Ocherki avarskoy dialektologii), 1959. In Russian

Микаилов Ш.И.
Очерки аварской диалектологии.
1-е издание.
Академия наук СССР. Дагестанский филиал. Институт истории, языка и литературы.
Москва-Ленинград: Изд-во АН СССР, 1959.
512 с. + 1 раскладная цветная карта; твердый ледериновый переплет, увеличенный формат.
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Mikailov Sh.I.
Essays on Avar Dialectology (Ocherki avarskoy dialektologii).
1st edition.
USSR Academy of Sciences. Dagestan Branch. Institute of History, Language, and Literature.
Moscow-Leningrad: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1959.
512 pp. + 1 fold-out color map; hardcover leatherette, large format.

Shikhabudin Ilyasovich Mikailov (1899–1964), an outstanding Avar philologist, linguist, lexicologist, poet, Doctor of Philological Sciences, and professor, is recognized as one of the founders of modern Dagestani linguistics. Born in the Avar highlands of Dagestan, he devoted his life to the systematic study of the Avar language — one of the major literary languages of Dagestan with a rich dialectal diversity — and to the development of national philology in the North Caucasus.
This 1959 first edition of “Ocherki avarskoy dialektologii” is his magnum opus and the first comprehensive monograph on Avar dialectology. Based on decades of fieldwork, it provides a detailed classification of Avar dialects, phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and lexical variations across mountain, foothill, and lowland zones, as well as historical phonetics, isoglosses, and contacts with neighboring languages (Andi, Dido, Lak, Lezgi, etc.). The book includes extensive dialectal texts, glossaries, and a large fold-out color dialect map — a pioneering cartographic achievement for Caucasian linguistics at the time.
Mikailov’s work laid the foundation for subsequent Avar and Dagestani dialect studies, influenced the creation of normative grammar and dictionaries, and contributed to the preservation and scientific description of one of the most dialectally fragmented languages in the Caucasus. Published by the USSR Academy of Sciences during the post-Stalin revival of regional humanities, it remains a classic and indispensable source for Caucasian linguistics, Avar studies, North Caucasian dialectology, and the history of Soviet minority-language philology.