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Some of the languages spoken in the Caucasus belong to language families already
mentioned, in particular Indo-European (Armenian, Iranian) and Turkic. But there remain a
large number of languages that do not belong to any of these families. These languages are
referred to as Caucasian, but it is important to note that this is essentially a negative
characterization. Indeed, it is currently believed that there are two or three families
represented among the “Caucasian” languages.
The Kartvelian (South Caucasian) family is spoken in Georgia with some extension
into Turkey, and the main language, the only one to be used as a written language, is
Georgian, the official language of the Republic of Georgia.
The other two Caucasian families are Northwest Caucasian (West Caucasian, AbkhazAdyghe) and Northeast Caucasian (East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestanian), although Nikolayev
and Starostin (1994) present a detailed argument for considering them to constitute a single
North Caucasian family; will be treated separately here.
The Northwest Caucasian languages are spoken in Abkhazia, the northwestern part of
the geographic territory of the Republic of Georgia, and in parts of Russia to the north of this.
The main languages are Abkhaz (in Abkhazia) and the varieties of Circassian (Kabardian and
Adyghe) spoken in Russia and by a sizeable diaspora in the Middle East.
The Northeast Caucasian languages are spoken primarily in the constituent republics
of the Russian Federation of Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Daghestan, with some spillover into
Azerbaijan. The languages with the largest numbers of speakers are Chechen (Chechnya) and
Avar (Dagestan).
Titany answered the question on May 11, 2022 at 09:35