The mechanisms of endogamy together with the idea that the language is ascribed to the village and should be the only one used by the villagers when speaking to each other prevented shifts to other languages and contributed to the preservation of linguistic diversity

The rules applied to men were less strict. The extravillage marriage of a man was also considered unfavorable, but it could take place even in villages with very strict endogamy, where girls were never given away.

Roads were built, people started using buses and cars, and widened their social networks. Various local activities that fostered relations between adjacent villages ceased to exist. Today, there is almost no agriculture and intervillage trading left. Traditional craftsmanships survived only in some villages, for example, Kubachi and Balkhar. At local markets, such as Tsudaqar and Kumukh, people prefer to use Russian for interethnic communication. Towns, whose role in the 19th century was minor, became sites of intensive ethnic mixing, with Russian used as a lingua franca.

The languages of adjacent groups were acquired in the course of interactions with the residents of other villages, such as exchanging goods, agricultural activities, staying overnight on the way to other places, celebrating weddings, or expressing condolences

The Republic of Daghestan is an area of high language density. Most of the languages spoken in Daghestan belong to the East Caucasian (Nakh‐Daghestanian) family.

Interviews show that in‐married women do not bring new languages to the villages, because they quickly acquire the local language new to them and use it with all their in‐laws and their children.

endogamous