Abzakh.com (Abzakh Dialect)

[Circassian World Newsletter]

http://www.abzakh.com

https://www.facebook.com/AbzakhDialect

https://twitter.com/AbzakhDialect

How this project emerged ?

Hayriye Güpse Güneş was born in a small town in the north of Turkey. Born into the Hatko family, Güneş grew up in the hart of a large Circassian community. She spent most summers among fellow Abzakh Circassians in her grandparents’ village of “Janbolat”—a traditional Abzakh community where Turkish is a second language to fluent speakers of that dialect of Circassian.

Her days were filled with routine village activities—gathering “зэе” (dogwood) with her cousins; learning how to prepare “къуае” (Circassian cheese) and living her life as her ancestors did—building a life time of memories that would shape her later in her adult life.

Her most vivid memories revolve around her beloved grandfather—a man who, half-conscious, could not utter a single word in any language other than his native Abzakh, in the final days of his life. In his final days, he would often turn to his granddaughter and issue his final requests in his native Circassian tongue.

Despite her experiences in her grandfather’s village, Gupse love for her forefather was not enough to bridge the language gap—she was unable to understand much of what her grandfather said.

It was at that moment that she promised herself that she would one day learn her native language. The strength of her resolve was met only by the difficulty of completing her task. Circassian in general, and the Abzakh dialect, specifically, is not a language that is easy to learn. It is not well documented; it appears in no books, magazines or radio or television programs. Outside of daily village life, it is not even a language that is actively taught.

During a visit to the United States, she met a fellow Circassian who had taken up the mantle of “language activism”. Despite his own efforts to preserve and promote a different dialect of the Circassian language, he introduced her to a language preservation specialist—a professor at a prestigious American university—who armed her with the tools necessary to document and preserve her beloved Abzakh dialect.

Upon her return to Turkey, armed with a simple voice recorder a vague idea and a clear resolve, she set about the task of recording as much of her beloved Abzakh dialect as she could. That was the starting point of this project.

Today, this project is still an ongoing effort. It may very well take a life time to document the life stories of the countless Abzakh speakers remaining in the world. But Gupse will do her best to record as many as she can.