Kilit, Ordubad

Municipality in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan

38°52′53″N 46°07′58″E / 38.88139°N 46.13278°E / 38.88139; 46.13278Country

AzerbaijanAutonomous republicNakhchivanDistrictOrdubadTime zoneUTC+4 (AZT)

Kilit is a village and municipality in the Ordubad District of Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan. It is located in the left side of the Nakhichevan-Baku railway, 16 km in the south-east from the district center. At present, there is no population in the village.^[1]

It is the provenance and namesake of the Kilit language—one of several native Iranian languages of the Azerbaijani people, such as Old Azeri^[2]^[3]—until the eventual linguistic and cultural Turkification of the area.^[4]

History

In the southeast of Kilit village, surrounded on all sides by steep slopes of the mountain and valleys, are karst caves with stalactites in their corridors and halls. The remains of the cultural layer which were found at the entrance of the caves show that the caves were ancient human settlements. Near Kilit, in the a place called Ul valley the ruins of the residence of the Middle Ages and grave monuments have been found.^[1]^{[better source needed]}

In accordance of the decision of the Transcaucasian Central Executive Committee dated February 18, 1929, the village of Karchevan, together with nine other villages of the Nakhichevan ASSR, was ceded to the Armenian SSR. In addition, part of the territory of the Kilit village became part of Armenia in 1923.^[5]

References

^ ^a ^b ANAS, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (2005). Nakhchivan Encyclopedia. Vol. I. Baku: ANAS. p. 296. ISBN 5-8066-1468-9.
^ Paul, Ludwig (1998a). "The position of Zazaki among West Iranian languages" in Melville (1999). Charles Melville (ed.). Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies: Mediaeval and modern Persian studies. Reichert. ISBN 978-3-89500-104-8.
^ Dalby, Andrew (1998). Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More Than 400 Languages. Columbia University Press. p. 156. ISBN 978-0-231-11568-1., p. 496.
^ "Azari, the Old Iranian Language of Azerbaijan", Encyclopædia Iranica, op. cit., Vol. III/2, 1987 by Ehsan Yarshater. External link: [1]
^ ANAS, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (2005). Nakhchivan Encyclopedia. Vol. I. Baku: ANAS. p. 296. ISBN 5-8066-1468-9.