Kaskian language

Kaskian
Kaška
Spoken in northeastern Anatolia
Ethnicity Kaskians
Extinct Bronze Age
Language family
unclassified
(Hatto-Kaskian?)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 zsk

Kaskian (Kaskean) was a non-Indo-European language of the Kaskians of northeastern Bronze Age Anatolia, in the mountains along the Black Sea coast.

It is sometimes suspected that Kaskian was related to the pre-Hittite Hattic language, based on toponyms and personal names. There may also be connections to the West Caucasian languages; the name Kaskian[1] may be cognate with an old name for Circassia,[2] and the name of one of the tribes in the Kaskian confederation, the Abešla, may be cognate with the endonym of the Abkhaz people,[3] suggesting the Kaskians proper and Abeshla might have been the ancestors of the Circassians (Adyghe) and Abkhazians.[4]

References

  1. ^ Hittite Kaškaš, Assyrian Kaška, Egyptian Kškš
  2. ^ Arabic kašak, Old Georgian kašag-i, Old Armenian gašk, Old Russian kasogi, Ossetic kæsæg, Byzantine Greek Κασαχία Kasakhía
  3. ^ Abkhaz Аҧсуа Apswa, Old Georgian apsil-, apšil-, Old Armenian apšeł-k, Greek Αψίλαι apsílai, Latin Absilae
  4. ^ George Hewitt, 1998. The Abkhazians, p 49