Northwest Caucasian People

–

–

–

The Kaska (also Kaška, later Tabalian Kasku) were a loosely-affiliated Bronze Age non-Indo-European tribal people, who spoke the unclassified Kaskian language and lived in the mountainous Pontic Anatolian region between the core Hittite region in eastern Anatolia and the Black Sea.

The Kaska, probably originating from the eastern shore of the Propontis, may have displaced the speakers of the Palaic language from their home in Pala. They are known from Hittite sources, and are cited as the reason that the later Hittite empire never extended northward to that area.

The Kaska first appear in the Hittite prayer inscriptions that date from the reign of Hantili II, c. 1450 BC, and make references to their movement into the ruins of the holy city of Nerik, and in the early 13th century, when Mursili’s son Muwatalli II was king in Hatti, the Kaskas sacked Hattusa. Hattusili III defeated the Kaska to the point of recapturing Nerik, and became the High Priest of its storm god, and when he took over the kingdom he returned the capital to Hattusa.

The Kaska contributed to the fall of the Hittite empire in the Bronze Age collapse, c. 1200 BC. Then they penetrated eastern Anatolia, and continued their thrust southwards, where they encountered the Assyrians. The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I recorded late in the 12th century BC that the Kaska and their Mushki allies were active in what had been the Hatti heartland. Tiglath-Pileser defeated them, and the Kaska then disappear from all historical records.

Repulsed by the Assyrians, a subdivision of the Kaska might have passed north-eastwards to the Caucasus, where they probably blended with the Proto-Colchian or Zan autochthons, forming a polity which was known as the Kolkha to the Urartians and later as the Colchis to the Greeks. Another branch might have established themselves in Cappadocia, which in the 8th century BC became a vassal of Assyria and ruled some Anatolian areas.

The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who established an empire at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around the 18th century BC. This empire reached its height during the mid-14th century BC under Suppiluliuma I, when it encompassed an area that included most of Asia Minor as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. After c. 1180 BC, the empire came to an end during the Bronze Age collapse, splintering into several independent “Neo-Hittite” city-states, some of which survived until the 8th century BC.

The Hittite language was a member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. They referred to their native land as Hatti, and to their language as Nešili (Nesili= from the city Nesa/Kanesh). The conventional name “Hittites” is due to their initial identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology.

Despite the use of Hatti for their core territory (present-day central Anatolia, Turkey), the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region (until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC) and spoke a language possibly in the Northwest Caucasian languages group known as Hattic. Hittite is an Indo-European language, linguistically distinct from the Hattians.

The Hattians was documented at least as early as the empire of Sargon of Akkad (c. 2300 BC), until it was gradually absorbed c.2000–1700 BC by the Indo-European Hittites, who became identified with the “land of Hatti”. The Hittites continued to use the term Land of Hatti for their new kingdom. The Hattians eventually merged with people who spoke Indo-European languages like Hittite, Luwian and Palaic.

The Hittite military made successful use of chariots. Although belonging to the Bronze Age, they were the forerunners of the Iron Age, developing the manufacture of iron artifacts from as early as the 14th century BC, when letters to foreign rulers reveal the latter’s demand for iron goods.

After 1180 BC, amid general turmoil in the Levant associated with the sudden arrival of the Sea Peoples, the kingdom disintegrated into several independent “Neo-Hittite” city-states, some of which survived until as late as the 8th century BC. The history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly from cuneiform texts found in the area of their kingdom, and from diplomatic and commercial correspondence found in various archives in Egypt and the Middle East.

Kaskian (Kaskean) was a non-Indo-European language of the Kaskians of northeastern Bronze Age Anatolia, in the mountains along the Black Sea coast.

It is sometimes suspected that Kaskian was related to the pre-Hittite Hattic language, based on toponyms and personal names. There may also be connections to the West Caucasian languages; the name Kaskian may be cognate with an old name for Circassia (ser-KASS-ee-uhnz), and the name of one of the tribes in the Kaskian confederation, the Abešla, may be cognate with the endonym of the Abkhaz peopleand some Circassian people, or Adyghe people, suggesting the Kaskians proper and Abeshla might have been the ancestors of the Circassians and other Caucasian peoples.

The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Abkhazo-Adyghean, or sometimes Pontic as opposed to Caspian for the Northeast Caucasian languages, are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region, chiefly in Russia (Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay–Cherkessia), the disputed territory of Abkhazia, and Turkey, with smaller communities scattered throughout the Middle East.

Circassian (or Cherkess) is a cover term for the series of dialects that include the literary languages of Adyghe (West Circassian), one of the more widely spoken Northwest Caucasian languages, and Kabardian (East Circassian).

Proto-Northwest Caucasian language mostly called PNWC (or Adyghe-Abazgi) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Northwest Caucasian languages, while Proto-Circassian (or Proto-Adyghe–Kabardian) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Adyghean and Kabardian languages. Proto Abkhaz-Abaza (or Proto-Abazgi) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Abkhaz and Abaza languages.

In their own language the Circassians refer to themselves as Adiga. The name is believed to derive from atté “height” to signify a mountaineer or a highlander, and ghéi “sea”, signifying “a people dwelling and inhabiting a mountainous country near the sea coast”, or “between two seas”.

A common name for the Adyghe is Circassians, a name which is occasionally applied to Adyghe and Abaza from the North Caucasus. The name Circassian is a Latinisation of Cherkess, the Turkic name for the Adyghe, and originated in the 15th century with medieval Genoese merchants and travellers to Circassia.

The Adyghe people originate in the North Caucasus region, an area they are believed to have occupied as early as the Stone Age period, with traces of them dating back as far as 8000 BC. In about 4000 BC, the Maykop culture flourished in the North Caucasus region, which influenced all subsequent cultures in the North Caucasus region as well as other parts of the region that is now southern Russia. Archaeological findings, mainly of dolmens in North-West Caucasus region, indicate a megalithic culture in the region.

Some scholars have seen affinities between the Northwest Caucasian (Circassian) family and the extinct Hattic language. Many Northwest Caucasian (Adygean) family names have prefixes like “Hath” or “Hatti”, and one of the well known Adyghe tribes has the name “Hattiqwai” (“male or son”); meaning “HattiSon”).

Adyghe society prior to the Russian invasion was highly stratified. While a few tribes in the mountainous regions of Adygeya were fairly egalitarian, most were broken into strict castes. The highest was the caste of the “princes”, followed by a caste of lesser nobility, and then commoners, serfs, and slaves. In the decades before Russian rule, two tribes overthrew their traditional rulers and set up democratic processes, but this social experiment was cut short by the end of Adyghe independence.

The ethnic religion of Circassians (Adyghes) was Habze — a philosophical and religious system of personal values and the relationship between an individual to others, to the world around him, and to the Higher Mind. In essence, it represents monotheism with a much-defined system of worshipping One God — the Mighty Tha (Tha, Thashxue).

Adyghe Khabze is the native Circassian religion, philosophy and worldview, it is the epitome of Circassian culture and tradition having deeply shaped the ethical values of the Adyghe. It is their code of honour and is based on mutual respect and above all requires responsibility, discipline and self-control.

Adyghe Xabze functions as the Circassian unwritten law yet was highly regulated and adhered to in the past. The Code requires that all Circassians are taught courage, reliability and generosity. Greed, desire for possessions, wealth and ostentation are considered disgraceful (“Yemiku”) by the Xabze code.

In accordance with Xabze, hospitality was and is particularly pronounced among the Circassians. A guest is not only a guest of the host family, but equally a guest of the whole village and clan. Even enemies are regarded as guests if they enter the home and being hospitable to them as one would with any other guest is a sacred duty.

A key figure in Circassian culture is the person known as the “T’hamade”, who is often an elder but also the person who carries the responsibility for functions like weddings or circumcision parties. This person must always comply with all the rules of Xabze in all areas of his life.

During the time of the settlement of Greek cities / colonies on the coast of the Black Sea there was an intermingling of cultures. Circassian mythology has noticeable aspects from Greek mythology. In return, there is evidence that Greek mythology also borrowed from Circassian legends.

In the 6th century, under Byzantine influence, many Adyghes became Christian, but under the growing influence of the Ottomans, many of them became Muslims. Throughout Circassian history the ethnic religion of Circassians has interacted with Christianity and Islam.

Genetically, the Adyghe population has shared ancestry mainly with European population. There is little influence of Central and South Asian populations.

Many linguists join the Northwest and Northeast Caucasian languages into a North Caucasian family, sometimes simply called Kavkazian (in opposition to Kartvelian (South Caucasian), which is thought to be unrelated, albeit heavily influenced by their northern neighbours). This hypothesis has perhaps been best illustrated by Sergei A. Starostin and Sergei Nikolayev, who present a set of phonological correspondences and shared morphological structure. However, there is no consensus that the relationship has been demonstrated, and many consider the correspondences to be spurious.

It has been conjectured that the North-West Caucasian languages may be genetically related to the Indo-European family, at a time depth of perhaps 12,000 years before the present. This hypothesised proto-language is called Proto-Pontic, but is not widely accepted, even if there does at least appear to have been extensive contact between the two proto-languages, and the resemblances may be due to this influence.

The internal reconstruction of the Indo-European proto-language done by Benveniste and Lehmann has set Proto-Indo-European (PIE) typologically quite apart from its daughters. In 1960, Aert Kuipers noticed the parallels between a Northwest Caucasian language, Kabardian and PIE. It was Paul Friedrich in 1964, however, who first suggested that PIE might be phylogenetically related to Proto-Caucasian.

There are numerous theories about the original location of Proto-Indo-European, the direct ancestor of English and most other languages of Eurasia. A key-factor in the quest for the homeland is the existence of close relatives of PIE. So far I have identified three of them:

– Hurro-Urartean, once spoken in Eastern Anatolia, and substratic to Armenian. The area where HU was spoken in the Antiquity more or less coincides with the historic Armenian highlands as indicated in the map.

– Hatti, which preceded Hittite in Central Anatolia and which died during the 2nd millenium BCE. Hatti is interesting in particular because it has duh- ‘daughter’, a cognate of PIE *dhugHter.

A third family of languages which appears to be very closely related with PIE is Caucasic Nakh. It is a rather small family that includes three languages: Chechen, Ingush and Batsbi. From a geographic point of view Nakh belongs to the North-Eastern branch of so-called “Caucasic” languages. The genetic relationships between all “Caucasic” languages remain controversial.

The features of modern Nakh which is embryonic in Hatti is the existence of Class-Prefixes. One of them is w- for male and y- for female (human) beings. These prefixes, probably pronouns, appear to suffixed in PIE. This certainly accounts for a set of words described in a previous post:

Some linguists argue that Kabardian is only a dialect of an overarching Adyghe, or Circassian language that consists of all of the dialects of Adyghe and Kabardian together, and the Kabardians themselves most often refer to their language using the Kabardian term Adighabze (“Adyghe language”).

There are several key phonetic and lexical differences that create a reasonably well-defined separation between the eastern and western Circassian dialects, but the degree to which the two are mutually intelligible has not yet been determined. The matter is also complicated somewhat by the existence of Besleney, which is usually considered a dialect of Kabardian, but which also shares a large number of features with certain dialects of Adyghe.