There are over 250 languages indigenous to Europe, and most belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. The three largest phyla of the Indo-European language family in Europe are Romance, Germanic, and Slavic; they have more than 200 million speakers each, and together account for close to 90% of Europeans.
Macedonian is an Eastern South Slavic language. It is part of the Indo-European language family, and is one of the Slavic languages, which are part of a larger Balto-Slavic branch. Spoken as a first language by around 1.6 million people, it serves as the official language of North Macedonia. Most speakers can be found in the country and its diaspora, with a smaller number of speakers throughout the transnational region of Macedonia. Macedonian is also a recognized minority language in parts of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, and Serbia and it is spoken by emigrant communities predominantly in Australia, Canada and the United States.
The Tatars, formerly also spelt Tartars, is an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar" across Eastern Europe and Asia. Initially, the ethnonym Tatar possibly referred to the Tatar confederation. That confederation was eventually incorporated into the Mongol Empire when Genghis Khan unified the various steppe tribes. Historically, the term Tatars was applied to anyone originating from the vast Northern and Central Asian landmass then known as Tartary, a term which was also conflated with the Mongol Empire itself. More recently, however, the term has come to refer more narrowly to related ethnic groups who refer to themselves as Tatars or who speak languages that are commonly referred to as Tatar.
The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or Vainakh-Daghestani, or sometimes Caspian languages, is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as in Georgia and diaspora populations in Western Europe and the Middle East. According to Glottolog, there are currently 36 Nakh-Dagestanian languages.
Circassia, also known as Zichia, was a country and a historical region in the North Caucasus. Located along the northeastern shore of the Black Sea, it was conquered by the Russian Empire during the Russo-Circassian War (1763–1864), after which approximately 90% of the Circassian people were either exiled or massacred in the Circassian genocide.
Novogrudok or Navahrudak is a town in Grodno Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Novogrudok District. As of 2024, it has a population of 27,936.
Kumyks are a Turkic ethnic group living in Dagestan, Chechnya and North Ossetia. They are the largest Turkic people in the North Caucasus.
Kildin Sámi is a Sámi language spoken on the Kola Peninsula of northwestern Russia that today is and historically was inhabited by this group.
Azerbaijanis, Azeris, or Azerbaijani Turks are a Turkic ethnic group living mainly in the Azerbaijan region of northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are predominantly Shia Muslims. They comprise the largest ethnic group in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the second-largest ethnic group in neighboring Iran and Georgia. They speak the Azerbaijani language, belonging to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages.
Dagestan, officially the Republic of Dagestan, is a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, along the Caspian Sea. It is located north of the Greater Caucasus, and is a part of the North Caucasian Federal District. The republic is the southernmost tip of Russia, sharing land borders with the countries of Azerbaijan and Georgia to the south and southwest, the Russian republics of Chechnya and Kalmykia to the west and north, and with Stavropol Krai to the northwest. Makhachkala is the republic's capital and largest city; other major cities are Derbent, Kizlyar, Izberbash, Kaspiysk, and Buynaksk.
The Bats people or the Batsbi are Nakh-speaking Tushetians in the country of Georgia. They are also known as the Ts’ova-Tush (წოვათუშები) after the Ts’ova Gorge in the historic Georgian mountain region of Tusheti. The group should not be confused with the neighbouring Kists – also a Nakh-speaking people who live in the nearby Pankisi Gorge.
The peoples of the Caucasus, or Caucasians, are a diverse group comprising more than 50 ethnic groups throughout the Caucasus.
The Kists are a Chechen subethnic group in Georgia. They primarily live in the Pankisi Gorge, in the eastern Georgian region of Kakheti, where there are approximately 5,700 Kist people. The modern Kists are not to be confused with the historical term Kists, an ethnonym of Georgian origin, which was used to refer to the Nakh peoples in the Middle Ages.
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is a variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language, updated in 1818 by the Serbian philologist and linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two alphabets used to write modern standard Serbian, the other being Gaj's Latin alphabet.
Kaitag is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken in Dagestan, Russia. It has sometimes been considered a divergent dialect of Dargwa due to it being part of the Dargin dialect continuum. The Routledge Ethnographic Handbook (2017) divided Kaitag into two dialects: northern (Magalis-Kaitak) and southern (Karakaitak). Recent results of the Association of the Russian Sociolinguists (2021) further developed it into three dialects: Lower Kaitag, Upper Kaitag and Shari.
"Gazikumukh Shamkhalate" is a term introduced in Russian-Dagestan historiography starting from the 1950s–60s to denote the Kumyk state that existed on the territory of present-day Dagestan in the period of the 8th to 17th centuries with the capital in Gazi-Kumukh, and allegedly disintegrated in 1642. However, In the 16th century's Russian archival sources Tarki is stated to be the "capital of Shamkhalate" and "the city of Shamkhal", while "Kazi-Kumuk" is mentioned as a residence. These facts contradict "1642 disintegration" date. Moreover, there is absolutely no source before the 1950s containing the term "Gazikumukh Shamkhalate" or a statement that Gazi-Kumukh had ever been the capital of Shamkhalate. Historically, Shamkhalate is widely described as Tarki Shamkhalate or just Shamkhalate.
Dargwa is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by the Dargin people in the Russian republic Dagestan. It is the literary and main dialect of the dialect continuum constituting the Dargin languages. It is based on the Akusha dialect of Dargin.
Syunik was a region of historical Armenia and the ninth province of the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until 428 AD. From the 7th to 9th centuries, it fell under Arab control. In 821, it formed two Armenian principalities: Kingdom of Syunik and principality of Khachen, which around the year 1000 was proclaimed the Kingdom of Artsakh, becoming one of the last medieval eastern Armenian kingdoms and principalities to maintain its autonomy following the Turkic invasions of the 11th to 14th centuries.
Bulgarian Folk Songs is a collection of folk songs and traditions from the then Ottoman Empire, especially from the region of Macedonia, but also from Shopluk and Srednogorie, by the Miladinov brothers, published in 1861. The Miladinovs' collection is the greatest single work in the history of Bulgarian folklore studies and has been republished many times. The collection is also considered to have played an important role by the historiography in North Macedonia.
Kumykia, or rarely called Kumykistan, is a historical and geographical region located along the Caspian Sea shores, on the Kumyk plateau, in the foothills of Dagestan and along the river Terek. The term Kumykia encompasses territories which are historically and currently populated by the Turkic-speaking Kumyk people. Kumykia was the main "granary of Dagestan". The important trade routes, such as one of the branches of the Great Silk Road, passed via Kumykia.
