North Caucasian languages

North Caucasian languages are indigenous to the North Caucasus and usually comprise the Northeast Caucasian and Northwest Caucasian families. Their genetic relationship to one another and to other language families remains disputed.

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Northeast Caucasian languages: A language family indigenous to the eastern North Caucasus, including Nakh and Dagestanian branches. This is one of the two families conventionally grouped as North Caucasian.
Proto-Northeast Caucasian: The reconstructed ancestor language from which the Northeast Caucasian languages descend. Its reconstruction traces the history of one component family without assuming a larger common ancestor.
Chechen language: A Northeast Caucasian language spoken chiefly by the Chechen people in the North Caucasus and diaspora. Chechen illustrates a major North Caucasian language with a substantial speaker community.
Language endangerment: The process by which a language loses speakers and transmission across generations, increasing its risk of extinction. Some North Caucasian languages face declining transmission and require documentation or revitalization.
Northwest Caucasian languages: A language family indigenous to the western North Caucasus, including Abkhaz, Abaza, Circassian, and Ubykh. This is the western counterpart to the Northeast Caucasian family.
Proto-Northwest Caucasian: The reconstructed ancestor language from which the Northwest Caucasian languages descend. Its reconstruction independently traces the western component family's history.
Abkhaz language: A Northwest Caucasian language spoken chiefly in Abkhazia and by diaspora communities. Abkhaz shows the grouping's western branch in contemporary use.
Ubykh language: An extinct Northwest Caucasian language whose last known fluent native speaker, Tevfik Esenç, died in 1992. Ubykh is a stark case of language loss within the western family.
Nakh languages: A branch of Northeast Caucasian containing Chechen, Ingush, and Batsbi. Nakh languages show one major branch within the eastern family.
North Caucasian hypothesis: A proposed genetic relationship uniting Northeast and Northwest Caucasian languages in a single family. This hypothesis would explain the grouping as a family, but its evidence is disputed.