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 diaspora populations in Western Europe and the Middle East. They are occasionally called Caspian, as opposed to Pontic for the Northwest Caucasian languages.
In Greek mythology, the Gargareans, or Gargarenses, were an all-male tribe. They copulated with the Amazons annually in order to keep both tribes reproductive. The Amazons kept the female children, raising them as warriors, and gave the males to the Gargareans.
The history of Chechnya may refer to the history of the Chechens, of their land Chechnya, or of the land of Ichkeria.
The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
The Chechens, historically also known as Kisti and Durdzuks, are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group of the Nakh peoples native to the North Caucasus. They are the largest ethnic group of the North Caucasus and refer to themselves as Nokhchiy. The vast majority of Chechens today are Muslims and live in Chechnya, a republic of Russia.
Bats is the endangered language of the Bats people, a North Caucasian minority group and is part of the Nakh family of Northeast Caucasian languages. It had 2,500 to 3,000 speakers in 1975.
Ingush is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by about 500,000 people, known as the Ingush, across a region covering the Russian republics of Ingushetia and Chechnya.
Ingush or Ingushes, historically known as Durdzuks, Gligvi and Kists, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting Ingushetia in central Caucasus, but also inhabitanting Prigorodny District and town of Vladikavkaz of modern day North-Ossetia. The Ingush are predominantly Sunni Muslims and speak the Ingush language.
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, where they migrated to from mountainous Ingushetia. 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 Dvals were a ethnographic group of Georgians, their lands lying on both sides of the central Greater Caucasus mountains, somewhere between the Darial and Mamison gorges. This historic territory mostly covers the north of Kartli, parts of the Racha and Khevi regions in Georgia and south of Ossetia in Russia.
The Nakh peoples are a group of North Caucasian peoples identified by their use of the Nakh languages and other cultural similarities. These are chiefly the ethnic Chechen, Ingush and Bats peoples of the North Caucasus, including closely related minor or historical groups.
The Vainakh peoples of the North Caucasus were Islamised comparatively late, during the early modern period, and Amjad Jaimoukha (2005) proposes to reconstruct some of the elements of their pre-Islamic religion and mythology, including traces of ancestor worship and funerary cults. The Nakh peoples, like many other peoples of the North Caucasus such as Circassians and Ossetians, practised tree worship, and believed that trees were the abodes of spirits. Vainakh peoples developed many rituals to serve particular kinds of trees. The pear tree held a special place in the faith of Vainakhs.
The Vainakh languages are a dialect continuum that consists of the Chechen and Ingush languages, spoken mainly in the Russian republics of Chechnya and Ingushetia, as well as in the Chechen diaspora. Together with Bats, they form the Nakh branch of the Northeast Caucasian languages family.
The Malkh were supposedly an ancient nation, living in the Western/Central North Caucasus. They are usually regarded as the westernmost Nakh people, and their name has a Nakh root. It is believed that the Chechen teip Malkhi derives from them, although the existence of the Malkh nation is strongly doubted.
The Orstkhoy, exonyms: Karabulaks/Qarābulāqs, Balsu, Baloy, are a historical ethnoterritorial society among the Chechen and Ingush people. Their homeland is in the upper reaches of the Assa and Fortanga rivers in the historical region of Orstkhoy-Mokhk. In the tradition of the Chechen ethno-hierarchy, it is considered one of the nine historical Chechen tukkhums, in the Ingush tradition as one of the seven historical Ingush shahars.
The Durdzuks, also known as Dzurdzuks, was a medieval exonym of the 9th-18th centuries used mainly in Georgian, Arabic, but also Armenian sources in reference to the Vainakh peoples.
Ghalghaï is the self-name of the Ingush, a Caucasian people, that is most often associated with the word "ghāla" (гIала) – meaning "tower" or "fortress" and the plural form of the suffix of person – "gha" (гIа), thus, translated as "people/inhabitants of towers", though according to some researchers the ethnonym has a more ancient origin. Some scholars associate it with the ancient Gargareans and Gelae mentioned in the 1st century in the work of the ancient historian and geographer Strabo. In Georgian sources, in the form of Gligvi, it is mentioned as an ethnonym that existed during the reign of Mirian I, as well as the ruler of Kakheti Kvirike III. In Russian sources, "Ghalghaï" first becomes known in the second half of the 16th century, in the form of "Kolkans"/"Kalkans", "Kolki"/"Kalki", "Kalkan people".
Ethnonyms of the Ingush — names of Ingush people, including self-names (endonyms) and names used by other ethnic groups to refer to the Ingush (exonyms) throughout the existence of Ingush people from Middle Ages to the modern day.
