16 Incredible Facts About the Languages of the Caucasus

These language families are Abkhazo-Adyghian, Nakho-Dagestanian, and Kartvelian. The specific genetic associations of the Caucasian languages are still unclear on many subjects, not only regarding interrelationships of those three major groups, but also extending to some internal subgroups.

Georgian, Megrelian (Mingrelian), Svan and Laz (or Chan) are part of the Kartvelian language family.

East and West Georgian dialects have slight differences between each other.

The Georgian language was believed to be created during the fifth century AD. It’s presumed that old Georgian script was derived from the Greek alphabet.

The Samegrelo and Zemo Svaneti regions use Georgian as a literary language. Laz, spoken on the southeastern shore of the Black Sea, uses Georgian as a literary language on Georgia’s territory. They use Turkish in Turkey’s territory.

These dialects are Lower and Upper Bal in the Inguri region, and Lentekh and Lashkh in the Tskhenistskhali region; as those languages are unwritten, Georgian and Russian are used as literary languages.

These languages have borrowed words from Iranian, Arabic, Greek, and Turkish languages.

This language family consists of Abkhaz, Adyghe, Abaza, Ubykh and Kabardian languages. The Abkhaz language is spoken in Abkhazia, an occupied territory of Georgia, by 113,000 native speakers according to the 1993 census.

Many citizens living in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria speak these languages.

The only trace of this language was found in the vicinity of Tuapse, Russia. It is the only unwritten language in the group.

As the name suggests, this language group includes Nakh and Dagestanian languages. Nakh language comprises Chechen, Ingush, and Bats. The latter is often referred to as Tsova-Tushian, spoken in the Zemo Alvani and Tusheti regions of Georgia. Both Chechen and Ingush languages are written, while Bats is not and uses Georgian as a literary language.

Bats is spoken by no more than 800 people

The Avar language, spoken in parts of Dagestan and Azerbaijan, is the literary language for other languages in the group. Small communities speak the language in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Turkey, and Kazakhstan. Spoken by no more than 762,000 people, the language has been listed by UNESCO as at risk of extinction.

With up to 12 million native speakers, Armenian is the dominant Indo-European language in the region, followed by the Ossetian language.

Greek, Persian, Kurdish, Judeo-Tat, Talysh, and Slavic languages (Ukrainian and Russian) are other Indo-European languages spoken here.

Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, brought by Assyrians who fled the Assyrian Genocide during the WWI, is spoken by 30,000 people, while Bohtan Neo-Aramaic is at risk of extinction (about 1,000 people speak it).