Bats people - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Bats people or the Batsbi (ბაცბი) are a small Nakh

Nakh languages

The Nakh languages are a small family of languages spoken chiefly by the Nakh peoples, in Russia , in Georgia, and in the Chechen diaspora ....

-speaking community in the country of Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

who are also known as the Ts’ova-Tush (წოვა-თუშები) after the Ts’ova Gorge in the historic Georgian province of Tusheti

Tusheti

Tusheti is a historic region in northeast Georgia.-Geography:Located on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, Tusheti is bordered by the Russian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan to the north and east, respectively; and by the Georgian historic provinces Kakheti and...

(known to them as "Tsovata"), where they are believed to have settled after migrating from the North Caucasus

North Caucasus

The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....

in the 16th century (see debate). The group should not be confused with the neighbouring Kists

Kist people

The Kists are a Nakh-speaking ethnic group in Georgia related to the Chechen and Ingush peoples. They primarily live in the Pankisi Gorge, in the eastern Georgian region of Kakheti, where their total number is approximate to 5,000 people.-Origins:...

– also a Nakh-speaking people, migrants from Chechnya – who live in the nearby Pankisi Gorge

Pankisi Gorge

The Pankisi Gorge or Pankisi is a valley region in Georgia, in the northeastern corner of the country, bordering the Chechnyan republic of the Russian Federation. Administratively, it is included in the Akhmeta district of the Kakheti region...

.

The first reference to the Batsbi in European ethnographical literature is in the chapter on the Tush and Tusheti in Johannes Güldenstädt

Johann Anton Güldenstädt

Johann Anton Güldenstädt was a Baltic German naturalist and explorer in Russian service....

's Reisen durch Rußland und im Caucasischen Gebürge ["Travels through Russia and in the Mountains of the Caucasus"], published posthumously by Peter Simon Pallas

Peter Simon Pallas

Peter Simon Pallas was a German zoologist and botanist who worked in Russia.- Life and work :Pallas was born in Berlin, the son of Professor of Surgery Simon Pallas. He studied with private tutors and took an interest in natural history, later attending the University of Halle and the University...

between 1787 and 1791, although Güldenstädt does not mention them by name, merely pointing out instead that "Kistian and Georgian are spoken equally in the 4 first-named villages [in the Ts'ova Gorge]. Their inhabitants could also more easily be descendants of the Kists than the other Tush" ["In den 4 erstgennanten Dörfern wird kistisch mit georgischen untermengt gesprochen. Die Einwohner können auch leicht mehr als die übrigen von Kisten gern abstammen."].

Most of the Batsbi currently live in the village of Zemo ("Upper") Alvani in the eastern Georgian province of Kakheti

Kakheti

Kakheti is a historical province in Eastern Georgia inhabited by Kakhetians who speak a local dialect of Georgian. It is bordered by the small mountainous province of Tusheti and the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north, Russian Federation to the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the Southeast, and...

, close to the town of Akhmeta

Akhmeta

Akhmeta is a town in the Kakheti province of Georgia. It is the home for Zurab Zviadauri, gold medalist in judo.In some parts of southern Germany the term 'Achmeta!' has become a common interjection for expressing disappointment or frustration....

(at the mouth of the Pankisi Gorge

Pankisi Gorge

). In the early nineteenth century, following the destruction of two of their villages by landslides and an outbreak of the plague

Black Death

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

, the Batsbi abandoned their villages in the Ts'ova Gorge in Tusheti and migrated down to the valley of the Alazani

Alazani

The Alazani is a river that flows through the Caucasus.It is the main tributary of the Kura in eastern Georgia, and flows for 351 km...

river, where they live to this day.
A significant proportion of the village's women work in Europe and in America, sending money home to the village. Many men still work as shepherds or cowherds, most of them wintering the animals in the Shiraki lowlands (south-eastern Georgia

Georgia (country)

, on the border with neighbouring Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...

) and then taking them up to summer pastures in Tusheti (a two- to three-week journey).

Language

Part of the community still retain their own Bats language

Bats language

Bats is the language of the Bats people, a Caucasian minority group, and is part of the Nakh family of Caucasian languages. It had 2,500 to 3,000 speakers in 1975....

, "batsbur mott", which has adopted many Georgian loan-words and grammatical rules, and is mutually unintelligible

Mutual intelligibility

In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...

with the two other Nakh languages, Chechen

Chechen language

The Chechen language is spoken by more than 1.5 million people, mostly in Chechnya and by Chechen people elsewhere. It is a member of the Northeast Caucasian languages.-Classification:...

and Ingush

Ingush language

Ingush is a language spoken by about 413,000 people , known as the Ingush, across a region covering Ingushetia, Chechnya, Kazakhstan and Russia. In Ingush, the language is called ГІалгІай Ğalğaj .-Classification:...

. This language is unwritten and the Batsbi have used Georgian as a language of literacy and trade for centuries. Their customs and traditions now resemble those of other eastern Georgia

Eastern Georgia

Eastern Georgia commonly refers to the eastern part of the nation of Georgia, which in historic times included the kingdom of Iberia in the Caucasus. The present-day term refers to the territory of Georgia which lies to the east and south of the Likhi and Meskheti Ranges, but excludes the region...

n mountaineers, particularly those of the Tush; the Batsbi have retained very little of their cultural traits (although it is probable that Batsbur customs have had a profound influence on the particularities of Eastern Georgian customs). Batsbur is not a Vainakh language (as Chechen and Ingush are) and forms a separate branch among the Nakh languages. It is the last remnant of the non-Vainakh branches of the Nakh family, all the others having gone extinct.

All Batsbi speak Georgian (usually with a Tushetian or Kakhetian accent). Only some speak Batsbur.

Debate over Origins

The origins of the Bats are not so clear, there are two prevailing views. As the Estonian scholar Ants Viires points out in is Red Book, it is actually two separate disputes: the first being whether it was Nakh tribes or Old Georgians that inhabited Tusheti first, the second being from which (or both) the Bats are descended.

Descent from the Transcaucasian Nakh tribes

The first is that they are descended from ancient Nakh tribes inhabiting the region. The Old Iberian name for the ancient inhabitants of Kakheti was "Kakh", but they apparently called themselves "Kabatsa" and they are thought to have been "Tushians of Nakh extraction" Jaimoukha notes that according to an 18th century Georgian historian named Vakhushti, the Kakh considered the Dzurdzuks (an old Georgian name for the Chechens), Kists (Georgian for the Ingush) and Gligvs (unknown origin, though some speculate it was another name for the Ingush as used by some authors) as their ethnic kin.

Another theory (not-necessarily mutually exclusive with the one above) is that their name in Georgian (Tsova-Tush) may be linked to the Tsov, a historical Nakh people claimed by the Georgian historian Melikishvilli to have ruled over the Kingdom of Sophene

Kingdom of Sophene

The Kingdom of Sophene was an ancient Armenian kingdom. Founded around the 3rd century BC the kingdom maintained independence until 90s BC when Tigranes the Great conquered these territories as part of his empire...

in Urartu (called Tsobena in Georgian) who were apparently forcefully moved to the region around Erebuni

Erebuni

Erebuni may refer to:*Erebuni Fortress, the fortress of ancient kingdom of Urartu, now territory of Armenia*Yerevan, capital of Armenia*Erebuni, Armenia, a district of Yerevan*Erebuni Museum*Erebuni Airport...

, a region linked to Nakh peoples by place names and various historiography (see Nakh peoples

Nakh peoples

Nakh peoples are a group of historical and modern ethnic groups speaking Nakh languages and sharing certain cultural traits...

for more info).

Descent from 16th century Ingush migrants

The second theory has it that the Batsbi crossed the Greater Caucasus range from Ingushetia in the seventeenth century and eventually settled in Tusheti

Tusheti

, and that they are therefore a tribe of Ingush origin which was christianized and "Georgianized" over the centuries.

However, this latter theory is somewhat awkward with regard to the fact that, linguistically, the Bats language (within the Nakh family) is much more distinct from Chechen and Ingush than they are from each other, having differentiated from them much longer ago than the 15th century (when Chechen and Ingush began differentiating, approximately), and forms a completely different branch. However, this does not necessarily render the theory to be non-plausible.

Descent from Old Georgian tribes

Ants Viires also notes that there are theories involving the Bats being descended from Old Georgian tribes who adopted a Nakh language.

ALLEN, W.E.D. (Ed.), Russian Embassies to the Georgian Kings – 1589-1605, The Hakluyt Society, Second Series No. CXXXVIII, Cambridge University Press 1970.

COMMENTARY 15 - Metsk, Batsk (ref. Chap. 2, p. 111, n. 1)

'Dont la position est absolument inconnue' Brosset (EC/BHP/II, Nos. 14-15, col. 236). Some of the topographical indications of this passage are obscure but it would seem that the Georgians were proposing a route up the valley of the Argun, leading by tracks over the main chain of [the] Caucasus [mountains] into the upper valleys of the Aragvi and the Alazani. This route would cross the territory of the Akko Chechens (Shikh murza's Okok) who were friendly to the Russians and had a sloboda at Terek-town (see Introduction, Section 5 and Commentary 14). The villages of Upper and Lower Kii (Akki) lie on an affluent of the Tchanti (White) Argun, the westerly feeder of the Argun (Baddeley, RFC, Vol. II, index under 'Kii' and Map V, and for description of Argun route as far as the Tchanti Argun, ibid., Vol. I, pp. 90 ff.). West of the Tchanti Argun a track crosses the Basti-lam (lam = mountain, ridge, in Ingush), the boundary between Chechnya and Georgia (ibid., Vol. I, p. 114) to Shatil (1,524 m.) west of the great peaks of Tebulos-mta (4,494 m.); then by the Anatori Pass to Khamkheti and paths leading to the upper valleys of the Aragvi and the Alazani. From Shatil, Baddeley states, a ride to Tiflis 'in summer or early autumn' would always be feasible. Compare Radde's 'Marschroute', 1876, in Die Chews'uren und ihr Land, as far as Djarego on the Tchanti Argun. West of this river Meesti ridge or plateau is marked on Güldenstädt's map; it seems to correspond to Miskin-doukh of Baddeley's Map V. Bronevski (Vol. II, p. 166) refers to an Ingush commune of Meesti, and also to the Aka and Betsi communes of the upper Kombulei. These indications explain the Metsk mountain range of Zvenigorodski. Amaley is the river Kombulei (Reineggs/W., Vol. I, p. 311; Bronevski, Vol. II, pp. 91, 152, 160), whose upper valley runs parallel with the Sunzha, the Assa and the Argun, and finally enters the Terek a few miles above Tartarup. Burnash remains obscure.

Reineggs/W. (Vol. II, p. 39), described the Basti as a sub-tribe of the Kists, then settled on the left bank of the middle Sunzha. They were neighbours of the Alti (cf. Baddeley, RFC, Vol. I, p. 79, for the commune of Aldee, famous as the base of Sheikh Mansur in 1785). These Basti may have been a fragment of an older Batsi agglomeration along the Sunzha. The Batsi (Georgian plur. Batsebi) were held to be Kists (Baddeley, RFC, Vol I, p. 90) who are related to the Chechens (Reineggs/W., Vol. I, p. 41). (Bronevski, Vol. II, p. 158, finds that the Kist language has some resemblance to Tush, and he believes therefore that the (Georgian) Tushes must be of Kist origin; it would seem here that he is in fact referring to the Batsi whose dialect has been much influenced by Georgian: see Desheriev.) In 1575 the communes of the Batsi in the tchanti-Argun district sought the protection of King Levan of Kakheti against the Avar nutsal; they were allowed to pasture their flocks in the highlands of upper Kakheti, south of the main ridge of [the] Caucasus [mountains] and south-east of the great peak of Tebulos-mta and the Kadowanis Pass (3,048 m.), where they mixed with the Tushes. During the last century they moved as far south as Akhmeti and Alvan on the Alazani (cf. Desheriev, Batsbiyski yazyk, and Radde, Chews'uren, pp. 330 ff., and map). For the suggestion that the Batsebi represent a surviving fragment of the classical Bessoi, see Karst, OM, p. 504; also Allen, 'Ex Ponto, I and II' in BK, No. 30/31 (1958), p. 51.

COMMENTARY 20(c) - 'Soni-land' (=Sonskaya Zemlya) - note on the ethnology of the eristavate of the Aragvi (ref. Chap. 3, p. 133, n. 2)

Neighbours of the Didos to the north-west were the Sodi of Pliny, VI, 10, whom Trever (Ocherki po istorii I kulture Kavkazskoy Albanii, Moskva, 1959, p. 202, n. 3) equates with the Tsavdi. There is a reference to the Tsavdi in the fifth century A.D. when they are bracketed with the Lipni or Lbini (Trever, p. 202), who are none other than the Lupeni of the classical authors (Trever, p. 48), a people perhaps to be identified with a wolf totem (cf. Commentary 41 for the cult of a black dog without spots surviving among the Didos).

The name Tsavdi corresponds to the Tsova of Wakhusht (Brosset ed., Description géographique de la Géorgie par le Tsarévich Wakhoucht publiée d'après l'original autographé par M. Brosset, St Petersburg, 1842, p. 327). It is possible to pinpoint the Tsavdi/Sodi from Wakhusht's account of Tusheti at the beginning of the eighteenth century (see Brosset's ed., pp. 327-9 and map 4 – 'Kakheth'). Tusheti is placed north of Mount Lopeti and the Lopotis-tsqali, clearly toponymic fossils of the old Lupeni, i.e. Lop-eti = the country of the Lup-en-i). The district lies on the flanks of the main chain where it forms the watershed of the Argun flowing north to the Terek and the Andi-koysu flowing north-east to the Sulak and the Caspian. Tusheti is divided into two valleys running from north-west to south-east. It has its own river (Tchanti-Argun on Baddeley's, The rugged flanks of Caucasus, Oxford, 1940, Map II where the place-name “Shoundee” still survives) which goes to join the Sona (here Argun) which crosses Tchatchan (Chechnia) and at Baraghan falls into the Terg (Terek). Tsova is beyond the Caucasus (i.e. south of the main ridge) in the direction of Pankisi; below Tsova is Gometsari, and lower down Tchaghma; from this last place the route leads to the valleys of Torga (cf. Commentary 28: The Village of Tog) and Lopoti: there are situated the principal villages of Tusheti but there are thirty-seven others. Of the remnants of the 'Tsoff' at the beginning of the twentieth century Baddeley, The rugged flanks of Caucasus, Vol. I, p. 90, observes that “amongst the Tousheens there is a whole community, known formerly by the name of Tsoff... which speaks a dialect of the Kist (Ingush) language and is, presumably, of Kist origin, though cut off from them as far back as history goes'.

Another group of these Sodi/Tsavdi/Tsova maintained their individuality into mediaeval times in the district of Sagaredzho, along the middle reaches of the Iori, since Janashvili, in his edition of Wakhusht (p. 104, n. 351), cites Kartlis-Tskhovreba, Vol. I, p. 239, for Sudzheti as an alternative name for Sagaredzho, naming the inhabitants Sudzhi or Sodzhi – forms which closely correspond to the classical Sodi.

Genko, Iz kulturnogo proshlogo Ingushey in Zapiski Kollegii Vostokovedov, Leningrad, 1930, p. 698, recalls that Tsiskarov, in his 'Notes on Tusheti' published in 1849 in the Tiflis journal Kavkaz, gives 'Vabua' as a second and ancient name of the original homeland of the Tsov who were then inhabiting the enclave among the Tush. He comments that 'there can be no doubt that the ancient Tsov name for Tsovata, Vabua, is identical with the tribal appellation of the Veppintsy (contemporary form fäppij) who were grouped around their ancient centre Erzi aul (Arzee on Baddeley's The rugged flanks of Caucasus, Map II) – on the river Arm-khi (Kistinka) which enters the Terek some versts below Old Lars'. According to the same author (p. 707), erziy (ärzij) is the Ingush word for 'eagle' – 'in all probability an old Iranian loan-word'. This may be compared with the totemic implications of 'Tsounta' and 'Tsesi', see p. 315 above. In the present writer's view, the Veppintsy (fäppij) can be a remnant of the classical Bessi of Macedonia and the Psessoi of the Cimmerian Bosporus, a widespread ethnic group of very ancient origins: for refs. See Bédi Karthlisa, Nos. 30-1, article by Allen, 'Ex Ponto I: Heni-Veneti and Os-Alans', passim. To the same remote background belong the Soni/Sodi/Sonti/Tsavdi, who can be identified with the varying forms Heni in classical sources.

In the 'Conversion of Georgia', a record compiled in the tenth century and relating to events of the sixth century, the Daryal gorge is named the 'Tsanar ravine' (cf. Genko, p. 711). The identity of Tsanar (in Georgian Ts'anar with ejaculative ts') with Ptolemy's Zanarioi has been accepted by Minorsky (Hudūd al-'Ālam: 'The regions of the world', Oxford, 1937, pp. 400 ff.). Zan-ari-oi, in fact represents the root zan>son with the duplication of the Svanian plural in -ar and the Greek plural in -oi. 'In the ninth to tenth century A.D. the Tsanar are often identified with the Kakhs. Finally, the Georgian-speaking peoples entirely absorbed the Tsanar... As regards the nucleus of the Tsanar trible, N.Y. Marr (Izvestiya Rossiyskoy Akademii Nauk, 1916, pp. 1397-8), hinted at its common origin with the present-day Chechen. Such is also the opinion of A.N. Genko, the undisputed authority on that part of the Caucasus' (Minorsky, ibid., and Genko, 711).

MOSER, Louis, The Caucasus and its People, with a Brief History of their Wars, and a Sketch of the Achievements of the Renowned Chief Schamyl, London: 1856 (pp. 67-69).

6. The Medzeghee or Kists, are often called Tchetchenzes, from the name of their most influential tribe. They possess the virtues and qualities peculiar to the Circassian races, and especially a most enthusiastic love of freedom and independence, submitting with the utmost reluctance to a foreign yoke, and watching with keen vigilance every opportunity of throwing it off.

Their villages consist of flat-roofed stone houses, protected by walls and towers, capable of resisting an energetic attack. Some of these tribes possess an abundance of cattle and corn, but they are nevertheless very frugal in their mode of living. They usually confine themselves to the district bordered on the west by the Terek (in the part where it flows northward), on the east by the Aksai and Engure, and bounded on the north by the Lesser Kabarda and Sundcha, and to the south by the Snowy Mountains.

The most influential tribes among them are:

1. The Ingushes, or Galgai, who reside on the Kumbolei, and in the plains between the latter and the banks of the Assai.

2. The Kists, north-west of the Ingushes, and extending to the Argun.

3. The Karabulaks, from the Zarthan to the Argun; and lastly,

4. The Tchetchenzes, who are found along the banks of the Argun, the Aksai, and the Sundcha. Several branches of this tribe inhabit the Snowy Mountain ridges, and of these the principal are:

a. The Tchavi, from the Aragvi to the springs of the Yori.

b. The Tuschi, found to the east of the latter, on the Alazani.

ABERCROMBY, John, A Trip through the Eastern Caucasus, with a Chapter on the Languages of the Country, London: 1889.

For the first time in the Caucasus I saw a rainbow, which Mejid knew as "Peighamber's girdle," or the girdle of the Prophet. The Tush, who are closely connected in language with the Chechents, call it "the girdle of the sky"; the latter people "the bow of the sky." (p. 127)

In a general way, I ascertained that the road was very mountainous, stony, and bad; that the Tush, through whose territory it was necessary to pass, were ignorant, barbarous, and independent, paying scant attention either to the orders of the local authorities or the injunctions of the law. (pp.147-148)

Half an hour's ride, however, along the right bank of the stream brought us opposite the village of Shatil, 4677 feet above the sea, and inhabited by a different race from the Chechents. Tatar called them Tush, but strictly speaking they were Khevsurs, an offshoot of the Georgians. Some of the Tush are, linguistically at least, Chechents, but the word seems often applied to the Georgian-speaking highlanders; for I could never get Mejid, who said he had often seen them at Nukha, to allow they were anything but Georgians. The Chechents-speaking Tush call themselves Batsav, and live south-east of the Khevsurs. (p. 172)

TSAROIEVA, Mariel, Racines mésopotamiennes et anatoliennes des Ingouches et des Tchétchènes, Riveneuve: 2008.

The Ingush and the Batsbi (or Batsoi)

The question of the ethnic ancestry of the Tushin, Georgian highlanders, who divide themselves into Tshagma- and Tsova-Tushin (or Batsbi / Batsoi), remains a difficult and litigious issue in modern caucasology. A.N. Guenko considered Tusheti as an ancient religious centre of "Georgianized" Ingush. One of the main arguments with which he sought to prove his case was the coincidence of the ethnonym Tush(in) with the theonym Tush(oli), the name of the goddess-mother of the Ingush, deeply venerated by this people until the early XXth century. Traces of the worship of this goddess by the Georgian highlanders could still be seen at the end of the XIXth century, despite their christianization. This was normal: newly-arrived tribes accepted the religious cults and rituals of the autochthonous populations, and worshipped them as they did their own.

Most researchers link the Tsova-Tushin or Batsbi (Batsoi) with the Ingush tribes. According to Klaproth, the Ingush region of Wabua or Wobua is considered to be their original homeland. The Batsbur language has preserved a large number of elements of ancient Ingush. The Batsbi used to maintain strong ties with their ancient north Caucasian compatriots. The works of I. Detcheriev and of the new generation of caucasologists, who linked the history and language of the Batsbi with those of the Ingush, were not met with much enthusiasm. This small people has led a calm existence for hundreds of years, integrated into Georgian society and protected by the intelligent politics of its government. They were not deported to northern Kazakhstan in 1944, and have therefore not experienced the atrocities that the Vainakhs had to endure. For the Batsbi, to be related to these peoples and to their tragic history could introduce an undesirable element into their quiet lives.

The new generation of Batsbi has chosen the path of full integration into the Georgian nation; only old people still speak their mother tongue. This is their right, and none wish to dispute this. The question here is the restoration of the history of the Vainakh people, of its historical roots, where every small detail which can further enlighten us is important. The study of the history and the language of the Batsbi allows one to understand how processes of unification and assimilation changed the ethnic map of the Caucasus. And yet, it is always difficult to accept the disappearance of a language from the arena of human correlations, language which, when it dies, takes with it a part of the history of humanity itself, as Claude Hagège wrote in his work Halte à la mort des langues (Paris, Odile Jacob: 2000).

This region of intense interethnic contacts between the Vainakhs and the Georgian highlanders was in the past inhabited by vainakhophone tribes. The arrival of Georgian tribes progressively displaced them northwards. However, the cultural, religious, and linguistic syncretism continued to exist in this region until the early XXth century. According to A. Zisserman, in the 1840s Tusheti was subdivided into four communities: Tsova (or Wabua), Gometsar, Tshagma, and Pirikiti (or Damakhkroi). The [inhabitants of] Tsova (Wabua) and the Pirikit were considered as tribes of Kist, Vainakh origin. And so, in the patronym Damakhkoi the Chechen words da ("father") and mokhk ("country, land") may be discerned; the name Wabua (Wappua) corresponds with the name of the Wappi (Fappi) community in Ingushetia, the inhabitants of the Metskal district. The elderly Batsbi have not forgotten their original homeland, which they call Wobi (Wabi), also known as Tsovata by the Tsova-Tushin themselves. The Chechens (the Ingush) call Batsoi all the Tushin, dividing them into two teipa [groups]: "The Georgians, and our people. The latter speak our language" (N. Volkova).

SERDYUCHENKO, The Linguistic Aspect of Bilingualism, in Report on an International Seminar on Bilingualism in Education, Aberystwyth, Wales, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London: 1978.

Bilingualism and multilingualism is characteristic of many peoples of the Soviet Union. These features can be observed among the peoples of [the] northern Caucasus, Daghestan, Transcaucasia, the Volga regions, Central Asia, the Baltic Republic, the Far East, etc.

There are some interesting observations of bilingualism among a number of mountain nationalities in the Caucasus. We shall dwell on the example when one of the under-developed mountain nationalities had been for several centuries under the influence of a mightier nationality, in regard to its cultural economy and its language, and had then become bilingual, at the same time preserving its own national language. This concerns the Batsbi people, a Circassian - Ingush nationality, otherwise - the Veinach group, living on the territory of the Georgian SSR.

According to our data, the Batsbi, or the Tsova-Tush people, had in the 6th-7th centuries become the territorial neighbours of the Georgians. We possess historical documents testifying to the economic and cultural-historic relations between the Batsbi and the Georgian peoples in the 16th century. Apparently, the Batsbi people adopted Christianity from the Georgians. According to literary data all the Batsbi people living in Georgian surroundings had mastered the Georgian language by the twenties of the 19th century and by that time had certainly become bilingual.

We can be certain that before becoming bilingual the Batsbi people had many Georgian word-loans and significant phraseological borrowings. But still during this period (before the establishment of bilingualism) their every-day language was the Batsbi. After the establishment of bilingualism beyond the limits of their aul [sic], the Batsbi people, as a rule, communicated in Georgian, continuing to borrow into their own language Georgian words, phraseology and also individual phonetic and grammatical features.

But alongside of this, while using Georgian as a means of communication, the Batsbi people added to it the peculiarities of their own language, concerning, first of all, phonetics, separate words and even Batsbi grammar models. This resulted in the fact that at the present time there is a special Batsbi, or Tsiva-Tush dialect [sic.] of the Georgian language.

The bilingualism of the Batsbi people has apparently been in existence for several ages, but as we have observed, during a significant period of time it did not hinder the parallel usage of the Georgian language and the native language of the Batsbi people. Gradually only the sphere of usage of the Batsbi language became narrower. Also some changes have taken place in the vocabulary, phonetic and grammatical systems of the Batsbi language. The grammatical system of the Batsbi language, in general, has been preserved up till the present time, though the language is gradually giving way, even in inter-family relations, to the Batsbi dialect of the Georgian language.

NICHOLS, Johanna, The Origins of the Chechen and Ingush: A Study in Alpine Linguistic and Ethnic Geography, in Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 46, No. 2, 2004.

Linguistically, the Nokhchii, Melkhii, and Kisti speak dialects of Chechen and the Ingush (including assimilated remnants of the Arshtkhoi) speak a distinct language which is not mutually intelligible with Chechen. Ingush and Chechen are very similar languages, however, and there is much passive bilingualism between their speakers, so the two languages function as a single speech community. All five of the traditional ethnolinguistic groups are collectively recognizes as vai naakh 'our (inclusive) people' and all the language varieties as vai mott 'our (inclusive) language' or Ingush vai neakha mott/Chechen vain neekhan mott 'our people's language'. In addition to forming a single speech community, all of them are united by common customs and traditional law. The Batsbi or Tsova-Tush of Georgia, whose language is related to Chechen and Ingush roughly as Czech is related to Russian and Ukrainian, do not belong to vai naakh nor their language to vai mott, though any speaker of Chechen or Ingush can immediately tell that the language is closely related and can understand some phrases of it. The Batsbi have not traditionally followed Vainakh customs or law, and they consider themselves Georgians. (A recent survey of linguistic and ethnic groups, both Nakh and Georgia, on the central south slope is Kurtsikidze and Chikovani [2002].)

Among the highland Ingush and on the south slope, we find apparently ancient geographically based ethnonyms for several Nakh groups larger than the clan. The Feappii were residents of the southern (i.e. higher) part of the Metskhaloi tribal territory in highland Ingushetia, and the Ingush called the Batsbi Feappii-baatsa (Genko 1930; Mal'sagov 1963). (Some sources consider the term Kisti equivalent to Feappii, e.g. Akhriev 2000; Krupnov 1971.) In northern Chechen, the cognate term Vaeppii refers to people from parts of southern Ingushetia (Maciev 1961), while in southern (Kisti) Chechen it refers to the Batsbi (Aliroev 1962). This terms may have been a self-designation of some Ingush, but for the most part it appears to have been used by southern Nakh speakers to refer to other, more southerly Nakh speakers.

[...]

Despite the Chechen legends of descent into previously uninhabited land, what concrete historical evidence we have indicates that descents to the lowlands over the last few centuries have involved movements to previously inhabited and previously Nakh-speaking towns. [...] the shift from Ingush to Chechen speech in the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia was evidently caused by Chechen descents which brought about swamping of an Ingush speech area by Chechen. Batsbi tradition as recorded by Desheriev (1953, 1963) preserves memory of a two-stage descent: first, abandonment of the original highland area in northern Tusheti, settling of villages lower in the mountains, and a period of transhumance plus permanent descents of a few families; then, complete abandonment of the highlands and year-round settlement in the lowlands after a flood destroyed one of the secondary mountain villages in the early nineteenth century. That is, Batsbi lowland outposts were established by a combination of transhumance and individual resettlements, and some time later there was a sizable migration into an established outpost.

RADDE, Dr. Gustav, Die Chews'uren und ihr Land — ein monographischer Versuch untersucht im Sommer 1876 (Cassel: 1878)

[Of the inhabitants of the Indurta and Sagirta communities]: The members of [these two communities] have largely emigrated to the lowlands along the Alazani River, to the east of Akhmeta; they move up in summer to the rich pastures of Tbatana at the southern end of the Massara mountain range (see Itinerary), but still consider Indurta as their property and even leave 2-3 families living there in winter. By the north-western spring of the Tusheti Alazani River. [...] Together, these two communities made up the Tsova community until 1866.

Indurta community:

1) The village of Indurta: 191 households.

Total: 413 men and 396 women (809 both sexes).

Sagirta community:

1) The village of Sagirta: 79 households.

2) The village of Tsaro: 26 households.

3) The village of Etelta: 48 households.

Total: 372 men and 345 women (717 both sexes).

TOPSHISHVILI, Roland, The Tsova-Tushs (Batsbs)

Article available on this page of Batsav.com or on the website of the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia.

External links

Batsav.Com, a site mainly dedicated to the Tsova-Tush with significant information on other Caucasian peoples.
YouTube, a video recording of a song in Batsbur.