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F OREWORD

into Kabardian, or Kabardian-Circassian (the Eastern dialect
of Adyghe) language, the state language of the Kabardino-
Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia Republics in the Russian
Federation, which are located in the central part of the North
Caucasus.
Both the Kabardian-Circassian and the Adyghe languages
are dialects of the Circassian language and belong to the
Abkhaz-Adyghe family of Caucasian languages. The
Kabardian language has 516,000 native speakers within the
Russian Federation, in the Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-
Cherkessia and Adyghea Republics, in the Krasnodar and
Stavropol Provinces, and in the Mozdok District of North
Ossetia. After the Russian-Caucasian War that lasted over
100 years in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and
brought incredible suffering to the Circassian people, the
Circassians became a scattered ethnic group that forms
compact communities in fifty countries. The total number of
native Kabardian-Circassian speakers across the world is over
1.7 million. The language is represented in most of the
countries of the Middle East: Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Israel,
Iraq, Lebanon, as well as in the USA, Australia, and Europe.
Also, a sizeable number of people who identify themselves as
the Circassians but lost their native language lives in Africa—
in Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Somalia, and Egypt.
The Circassians had early medieval contacts with Europe
through the Genovese trade colonies in the Black Sea shores
(Kafa, Taman, etc.). These steady and diverse contacts were
parts of the general Mediterranean culture of that time—to
which most scholars place the Circassians as well. However,
the Circassians did not have a chance to meet the Anglo-Saxon
world more closely, and due to the catastrophe of their
deportation after the Russian-Caucasian War in the nine -
teenth century an incredible damage has been done to the
centuries-old Circassian culture. This damage was partially

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