The Caucasus is well-known for its ethnic and linguistic diversity. This diversity has played an important role in the social and political development of the region. The official approaches to handling this diversity has differed during different periods in history – the tsarist, Soviet and post-Soviet periods. We distinguish between the Caucasian languages and languages of the Caucasus, i.e. all languages spoken in the region, irrespective of their genetic affiliation (Turkic, Indo-European, Caucasian etc.). The term “Caucasian languages” refers to the Northwest, Northeast and South Caucasian (Kartvelian) languages.
By genetic affiliation we mean groupings of languages that are related in the sense that they have developed from earlier ancestor languages. This means that all languages that are genetically related in one language family share some lexical items and grammatical traits that they have “inhereted” from the ancestor language. For instance, many words in the Germanic languages are common and similar because they have been passed on from earleir stages of the languages, and not because of borrowings.
All languages undergo changes under hundreds and sometimes thousands of years when they have developed in diverent directions. During such long periods these changes are usually rather substantial. By comparing basic vocabulary in modern languages and looking for systematic similarities between the modern languages and earlier stages of relevant languages, the goal is to “reconstruct” earlier common forms of words and grammar, and subsequently also the ancestor language.
The most well-known and well established language family is the Indo-European languages, reaching from the Celtic languages in the West to the Indic languages in the East. The study of the Indo-European languages has been largely fascilitated by the fact so many of the languages in this group have very old written documents (Sanskrit, Old Greek, Latin etc.).
In the Caucasus region we have several Indo-European languages represented. The major Indo-European language is Armenian, which forms a separate branch of the IE. Greek is also a separate branch of the IE. We find several languages of the Iranian branch of the IE: Ossetic (Ossetian), Kurdish, Tat and Talysh. Russian and Ukrainian represent the Slavic branch of the IE.
What about the Caucasian languages, do they form a language family? Well, on this point these is not general agreement among researchers. It is quite clear that the North-West, North-East and South Caucasian languages are related within the three groups, but it has not yet been possible to establish a common ancestor language for the three groups.
