Dr. Viacheslav A. Chirikba
D.I. Gulia Institute for Humanities Research
Sukhum, Republic of Abkhazia

In this paper, I shall discuss the global problem of language endangerment and how it pertains to the Abkhazo-Adyghean languages; I shall also put forward some proposals concerned with securing the future of these languages both in the Caucasus and in the Diaspora.

Ekho Kavkaza -- The Abkhaz language is officially registered in UNESCO’s list of endangered languages. The critical situation observed today has not something that emerged just yesterday or the day before. Among the numerous significant factors that have resulted in the current state of the Abkhaz language we can outline the calamity of the ‘Great Exile’ (makhadzhirstvo) in the 19th century, which turned Abkhazia into a country with a multi-ethnic population where the Russian language slowly but surely acquired the status of the language of interethnic communication; then there was the Georgian demographic and political expansion during the ascendancy of Beria in the mid-20^th century, which in part led to Abkhaz-language schools being forced to adopt the Georgian language as the language of tuition. Such were the main but far from all the historical episodes and factors conditioning the current situation.

Prof. Georges Charachidzé has passed away on 20 Feb. 2010, in Paris.

Born in 1930 in France of a Georgian father and a French mother, Georges Charachidzé became a pupil of the great French scholar Georges Dumézil in 1953 when the latter agreed to supervise Charachidzé's doctoral thesis, which turned into his first publication ('Le Système religieux de la Géorgie païenne' = 'The Religious System of Pagan Georgia'). He was to adopt his supervisor's interests in the Caucasus and eventually, after Dumézil's death, take on his mantle as main collaborator with Ubykh's last fully competent speaker Tevfik Esenç in order to continue research on this soon-to-become-extinct North West Caucasian language -- Tevfik himself died in 1992.

Iran and the Caucasus, Volume 10, Number 1, 2006 , pp. 25-76(52)
 
Abstract 
 
The paper presents a thorough investigation of the Abkhaz borrowings in Megrelian, including structural loans, grammatical elements, adjectives, adverbs, numerals, and appellativa (anatomical and medical terms, household items, terms related to husbandry and pasture, floristic and zoological names, religious terms, landscape, food, etc.). The author examines also the cases of the Abkhaz influence on Megrelian onomasticon.

CONFERENCE 

Abkhazia in the Context of Contemporary International Relations
Pitsunda, The Republic of Abkhazia: June 29 - July 1, 2004

Though the title of this presentation may seem somewhat out of place in the context of the topic of the conference, I feel justified in discussing the matter in the conviction that a state's language-policy is an integral part of the way it presents itself to the outside world. It can, thus, help to shape general attitudes to the state and ultimately affect inter-state relations, both in the region and more widely.