It is spoken mainly in the western and southern parts of the Russian Caucasus republic of Dagestan, and the Balaken, Zaqatala regions of north-western Azerbaijan.

There are also small communities of speakers living in the Russian republics of Chechnya and Kalmykia; in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Jordan, and the Marmara Sea region of Turkey.

The dialects are listed in alphabetical order based on their name in Glottolog: There are competing analyses of the distinction transcribed in the table with the length sign ⟨ː⟩.

In Avar, accent is contrastive, free and mobile, independent of the number of syllables in the word.

[9] Peter von Uslar developed a Cyrillic-based alphabet, published in 1889, that also used some Georgian-based letters.

The alphabet takes the following form:[10] а б в г ӷ д е ж һ і ј к қ л м н о п ԛ р с ҫ т ҭ у х х̓ хّ ц ц̓ ꚑ ч ч̍ чّ /ч̓ ш ƞ ƞ̓ ɳّ ດ As part of Soviet language re-education policies in 1928 the Ajam was replaced by a Latin alphabet, which in 1938 was in turn replaced by the current Cyrillic script.

Essentially, it is the Russian alphabet plus one additional letter called palochka (stick, Ӏ).

This was indeed not the case at the time of writing of a linguistic article for the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1881.

[15] As an example, in Avar Arabic Script, four varieties of the letter yāʼ ("ی") have been developed, each with a distinct function.

نۈڸ ماڨێڸ وێڮانا، ڨالدا ڸۇق - ڸۇقۇن، ڨۇردا كُېر ڃُان ئۇنېو، بێدا وېضّۇن دۇن؛ ڨۇرۇڬێ باطاڸۇن صېوې ئۇناڬۈ، صۈ ڸارال راعالدا عۈدۈو كّۈلېو دۇن.

ڸار چُاخّۇلېب بۇڬۈ چابخێل گّالاڅان، ڸێن گانضۇلېب بۇڬۈ ڬانڃازدا طاسان؛ طاراماغادێسېب قُال بالېب بۇڬۈ، قۈ ڸێگێلان دێصا سۈعاب راڨالدا‎ Нолъ макьилъ вихьана, кьалда лъукъ-лъукъун, Кьурда квер чIван унев, бида вецIцIун дун; Кьуруги батIалъун цеве унаго, Цо лъарал рагIалда гIодов кколев дун.

[citation needed] The most famous figure of modern Avar literature is Rasul Gamzatov (died November 3, 2003), the People's Poet of Dagestan.