Dargwa belongs to the North-East Caucasian Languages, and is the official and literary language for a group of peoples speaking related dialects, the most distinct of which are Kaitak (or Qaidaq) and Kubachi. Standard Dargwa is based on the dialect of Akusha.

The Muslim speakers of Dargwa, Kaitak and Kubachi once used Arabic as their literary language. Dargwa became a written medium in the late 19th Century, at first using Arabic script. As with so many minority languages of the Soviet Union, the Latin alphabet was introduced in 1928, to be abandoned in favor of Cyrillic in 1938.