 Tamga of theHouse of Berzeg, one of the most influential clans of Ubykhia. | |
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| Ubykh (historically), Turkish,Circassian languages | |
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| Circassians,Abkhazians,Abazins |
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TheUbykh (Ubykh:Tuex̂ı/tʷɜxɨ/;Adyghe:Убых,romanized: Ubyx;Russian:Убыхи;Turkish:Ubıhlar / Vubıhlar) are an extinct ethnic group of theCircassian nation, represented by one of the twelve stars on the green-and-goldCircassian flag.[1] Along with the Circassian tribes ofNatukhai andShapsug, the Ubykh formed theCircassian Assembly (Adyghe: Адыгэ Хасэ) in 1860.[2] Historically, they spoke a distinctUbykh language,[3] which never existed in written form and went extinct in 1992 whenTevfik Esenç, the last speaker, died.
The Ubykh used to inhabit the capital of Circassia, Sache (Circassian:Шъачэ, lit. seaside) — present-daySochi,Krasnodar Krai,Russia.[citation needed] The province of the Ubykh tribe was situated between theShapsug tribe near Tuapse and theSadz (Dzhigets) in the north of Gagra.[4] The Ubykh tribe were mentioned in book IV ofProcopius'De Bello Gothico (The Gothic War), under the nameβροῦχοι (Bruchi), a corruption of the native termtʷaχ. In the 1667 book ofEvliya Çelebi, the Ubykh were mentioned as Ubúr without any other information.[5]
The Ubykh were semi-nomadic horsemen, and had a finely-differentiated vocabulary related to horses and tack. Some Ubykh also practicedfavomancy andscapulimancy. However, the Ubykh gained more prominence in modern times. By 1864, during the reign ofTsarAlexander II, the Russian conquest of the Northwestern Caucasus had been completed. The otherCircassian tribes and theAbkhaz were decimated, and theAbaza were partially driven out of the Caucasus.
Faced with the threat of subjugation by the Russian army, the Ubykh, as well asother Muslim peoples of Caucasus, left their homelanden masse beginning on 6 March 1864. By May 21, the entire Ubykh nation had departed from the Caucasus. They eventually settled in a number of villages in westernTurkey around the municipality ofManyas.
In order to avoid discrimination, the Ubykhelders encouraged their people to assimilate into Turkish culture. Having abandoned their traditional nomadic culture, they became a nation of farmers. The Ubykh language was rapidly displaced byTurkish and otherCircassian dialects; the last native speaker of Ubykh,Tevfik Esenç, died in 1992.
Today, the Ubykh diaspora has been scattered about Turkey and—to a much lesser extent—Jordan. The Ubykh nationper se no longer exists, although those who are of Ubykh ancestry are proud to call themselves Ubykh, and a couple of villages are still found in Turkey where the vast majority of the population is Ubykh by descent.
Ubykh society waspatrilineal; many Ubykh descendants today know five, six, or even seven generations of theiragnatic ancestry. Nevertheless, as in other Northwest Caucasian tribes, women were especially venerated, and the Ubykh retained a special second person pronoun prefix used exclusively with women (χa-).
The 12 Circassian tribes: Abadzeh Besleney Bzhedug Yegeruqay Zhaney Kabarday Mamheg Natuhay Temirgoy Ubyh Shapsug Hatukay. The twelve stars on the Adyghe Flag also refers to the twelve tribes.
Yet this growth, in the opinion of the Shapsug themselves, is no more than an illusion, and it is quite likely that the fate of two other Adyg peoples — the Ubykh and the Natukhayevtsy, who have ceased to exist — will…
Smeets 1988 adds to this list also Ubykh Circassian, i.e. the form of West Circassian as spoken by Ubykhs.
The province of the Ubykh.
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