Circassian Lullabies: Magic Blessings Cast for Bliss

The Circassians had a broad repertoire of lullabies. Although the majority were sung by the mother, a number of songs were composed by the foster-parents (ataliq; атэлыкъ), to be addressed to their wards (qan, p’ur; къан, пIур). Besides their mundane function of lulling the young ones to sleep, the Circassians believed that lullabies contained magic powers, and were considered as charms cast upon the tiny tots to consecrate them, ensure their well-being, and enshrine their lives in good fortune. In this sense, the emotional and instinctive tie between mother and child was augmented by a sacred bond.

Circassian cradle, Kabardian style. 

Called "gwsche" [«гущэ»], "x'iriyne" [«хъыринэ»; literally: "swing"], 

"gwschex'iriyne" [«гущэхъыринэ»; literally: "cradle-swing"].

Circassian cradle, Adigean style. 

Soft straps (gwscheps) were used to prevent the infant from falling off the cradle.

North Caucasian cradles had a unique toilet "drainage" mechanism consisting of a shaft

of cored thigh-bone (usually of sheep) ending in a clay container.

The following old traditional cradle song is from the Besleney repertoire. It well illustrates the fact that the Circassians looked upon their progeny as bringers of good fortune and bliss.

Besleney is considered as a divergent dialect of Kabardian. In some linguistic literature Kabardian and Besleney are considered as the dual constituents of Eastern Circassian. The Besleney in the Caucasus are mainly found in the Karachai-Cherkess Republic. It is thought that the majority of the Besleney are now-a-days found in Turkey.

 «ГУЩЭ УЭРЭД: НАНУ МАХУЭ!»

Ла, лай, а нану!
Лай, нахуэ, си нахуэ,
Си нитIум язэу, си махуэ!
Нану согъэджей, нынэ,
Нану джеигъуафIэ, нынэ.

Ла, лай, си нану!
Лай, нахуэ, си нахуэ,

Си махуамэ, си насып!

Нанур согъэджей, нынэ,
Нанур джеигъуафIэ, нынэ.

Ла, лай, а нану!
Нану цIыкIур ин къэхъун,
Ин къэхъумэ къезгъэшэн,
КъыщичахэкIэ си унэкъуэщ.
Лай, махуэ, си кIалэ цIыкIу!
КIалэ цIыкIур согъэджей,
ДжеигъуафIэ, си махуай!

“Circassian Lullaby: Auspicious Child!”

Hush, little baby!

Hush-a-bye, resplendent one,

Precious as my eye, sweet godsend!

I’m lulling the little one to sleep,

Sweet dreams, my dear!

Lullaby, hush-a-bye, tiny tot!

Rock-a-bye, my splendid lot,

My great fortune, my good luck!

I’m singing my baby to sleep,

Sleep well, cherished one!

Hush-a-bye, shush, little babe!

The tiny one will grow up one day,

Then I shall marry him off,

Though it be to one of my kin.

Rock-a-bye, my sweet young child!

The little kid I soothe to sleep,

Sweet slumber, auspicious one!

Transcribed & translated by Amjad Jaimoukha

Listen to a performance of the primeval cradle song by 

The Zchiw Song Ensemble, sung by Rima Chemishwa

The Zchiw Song Ensemble. Rima Chemishwa is seated in the middle.

"Zchiw" has revived a broad repertoire of ancient and traditional songs, chants and melodies, 

and its members utilize ancient musical instruments 

and play authentic songs of the roaming Circassian bards as they would have been heard 

prior to the 19th century. 

Adigean

Умэхъын кIуачIэу ахэлъымкIэ, кушъэ орэдхэр тепчмэ ябгъапчэмэ хъущтых. Кушъэ хэлъ сабыир дунэе нэфым фагъадэу, чъые IэшIу къыфэкIонэу, шIур пстэури къехъулIэнэу фэлъаIох.

Kabardian 

Мэгъу къарууэ яхэлъымкIэ, гущэ уэрэдхэр тебжэхэм ебгъапщэ хъунущ. Гущэм хэлъ сабийр дуней нэхум хуагъадэу, жей IэфIым хилъэфэну, фIыгъуэ псори къехъулIэну хуолъаIуэ. 

Mastafa X'wazch: The Circassian Bard of Jerash

Хъуажь Мэстафэ: Джэрэшлы адыгэ джэгуакIуэ 

Mastafa (Aliy Yibrehiym) X'wazch (Хъуажь Ибрэхьим и къуэ Алий и къуэ Мэстафэ) was born in Jerash (Jordan) circa 1910. He was a very talented storyteller, in the best traditions of the ancient Circassian minstrels. He learned his art from various storytellers and bards in Jerash. He was much helped in his craft by his retentive memory to learn much of the oral lore that was carried by the Circassians into exile. He developed and polished a distinctive style of delivering the oral gems of yore with personal embelishments that added drama and excitement without compromising the content and purport of the tales. His repertoire included toasts, medieval tales, and traditional stories and laments. He also composed tales of his own.  X'wazch died at the age of 83 in 1993. 

Fortunately, recordings of some of his gems have come down to us grace to his daughters and grandchildren. These recordings have been converted to audio files and are available with synopses of the toasts and tales.  

Mastafa X'wazch on YouTube

An account of the Circassians in Jerash.   

 The help of Mrs. Suha X'wazch, Vice-President of the Circassian Charity Association/Ladies' Branch, is acknowledged. She provided digital recordings of the minstrel's art and furnished information on the life and work of the great bard.

The Circassian Minstrels (АДЫГЭ ДЖЭГУАКIУЭ)

Speaking about Circassian song and poetry, it is impossible not to mention their versifiers and balladeers. In the old days, musical traditions were upheld by a professional class of roving minstrels whose members were collectively and singly known as 'jegwak’we' (джэгуакIуэ), or players. Some of the more accomplished of these were lured by, and became attached to the aristocratic classes. In origin, the bards were usually commoners, and they did not receive any special education or training, relying on their inborn talents. They engaged exclusively in the art of poetry and song. These bards singly or in bands roamed the land; their instruments affording them not only safe conduct, but also rapturous welcome. They performed songs and recited heroic poems at festivals and for the pleasure of the upper classes, which received them in their exclusive guesthouses.

Their exquisite music talents and social skills afforded them to play the role of masters of ceremonies (хьэтиякIуэ; hetiyyak’we) at dance parties and their entrancing eloquence made them premium toastmasters at banquets and festivals. They were improvisators par excellence, delighting (or slighting) in airing satirical songs extempore. They also played the jesters, donning the cap and bells in settings of lighter nature. They composed songs commemorating sanguinary events, national and glorious deeds and feats of distinction in battle, composed biographies of celebrated men and sang ancient songs, including gems from the Nart Epos. They also took part in military campaigns, singing war chants that instilled courage and fortitude in the warriors. These minstrels found in this occupation not only subsistence but also wealth. Every prince retained a few of these singers in his court, bestowing opulent gifts upon them. Apart from their high status as entertainers, they composed songs in praise of their patron. A potentate had high stakes riding on keeping his bards happy to escape their virulent tongues, which could perpetuate airs of malediction for ages—a sound case of the tongue being sharper than the sword. (An old saying goes, ‘Weredwis — pschi pse’wx’ [«Уэрэдус — пщы псэIух»], ‘The songwriter is the terror of the prince.’) Of his oratorial powers, a great bard once boasted: ‘With but one word, I could turn a coward into the brave protector of the homeland; I could cause eagle’s wings to grow on the brave and compel the thief to abandon his wicked ways. In my presence, the wicked dare not stand, for I am the mortal enemy of dishonesty and meanness…’ («Сэ къэрабгъэр зы псалъэкIэ хахуэ, Хэкум и хъумакIуэ сощIыф, лIыхъужьым бгъэм и дамэ къытызогъакIэ, дыгъум и хьэлыр зыхызогъэн. Си пащхьэ къиувэфынукъым цIыху бзаджэр, сэ цIыхугъэншагъэм, икIагъэм срабийщ...») In general, oratory (particularly the delivery of toasts) had a great effect on the Circassians, who would become literally spellbound and mesmerized by the invocation of the magic words. When a folk poet composed a song and it was approved for release, singers from neighbouring regions were summoned to listen to the song for as many times as it took for all the audience to learn it by heart.

The members of this class composed songs commemorating sanguinary events, national and glorious deeds and feats of distinction in battle, composed biographies of celebrated men and sang ancient songs. They also took part in military campaigns, singing war chants that instilled courage and fortitude in the warriors. In describing the battle to take the Khazar City of Sarkala (Sarkel) on the Don, a poet recounted:

The singer kept chanting atop his white steed,

And the horn blowers filled the air with blood-curdling screeches.

Our heroes, animated, performed feats of glory,

And the flames of war engulfed the lands beyond the Azov.

They were in many respects not very unlike the bards and minstrels of the Franks and Celts. In this manner, these singers preserved the exploits of the ancestors, by transmitting them to their progeny. They also kept in memory much of the national lore, history, and literature.

When a folk poet composed a song and it was approved for release, singers from neighbouring regions were summoned to listen to the song for as many times as it took for all the audience to learn it by heart. Then these went back to their villages and sang it, thus spreading it by word of mouth (A. Keshokov, 1981, p15). In the nearer past, these musicians included violin-players, poets and singers. According to Askerbi Shorten (Shortanov; b. 1916), these ‘players’ were the voices of the masses, singing for freedom and the downfall of tyranny—a repetitive Soviet theme that was taken to the realm of the ridiculous and beyond.

The Qilishbiy Village (now Nartan) minstrel, Bechmirze Pasch’e (1859-1936), apart from being the founder of modern Kabardian poetry, was a very versatile songwriter, in the best tradition of the bards. He immortalized the Kabardian revolt of 1913 against Tsarist rule in the famous song ‘Dzeliqwe War’. He made use of the traditional heroic song genre to convey his ideas, as in ‘Wezi Murat yi Wered’ (‘The Song of Murat Wezi’). A collection of his poems and compositions (Wisaghexer) was published in 1963.

The ‘ancient bards’ survived well into the 20th century, roaming the land and delivering their wares to enchanted listeners. Among them were LasheAghnoqwe (1851-1918) from the village of Doqwschiqwey in Kabarda ; As-hed Schojen, a Kabardian player of the harp (pshinediqwaqwe); Sehiyd Mizhey (1850-1949); Muse Mizhey (1894-?); As-hed Hex’wpasch’e from the village of Qex’wn in Kabarda; Mirzebech Werdoqwe (1884-?) from the village of Hebez in present-day Karachai-Cherkessia, a famous singer of Nart songs in his time; and Yelmirze Schawezch (1882-1979) from Anzorey in Kabarda, who played ancient Nart anthems on his shich’epshine.

In the diaspora, the minstrels' traditions were continued for decades after the Great Exodus in the middle of the 19th century. For example, in Jerash, a village that the Circassians re-established following their arrival in Jordan in 1878, bards kept appearing in the first half of the 20th century. Fortunately, it was possible to record some of the literary ware of the 20th-century minstrel X'wazch Mastafa (Хъуажь Мэстафэ), who was born in the second decade of the 20th century in Jerash. These audio recordings should cast some light on the art and craft of the Circassian bards.

The Circassian Language

Circassian is one of the three divisions of the Northwest group of Caucasian languages, the other two being Abkhaz-Abaza and the now extinct Ubykh (Pakhy). Though genetically related, the three languages are mutually unintelligible, the lexical differences between them being quite substantial. Some linguistic research suggests that more than 5,000 years ago all Northwest Caucasians spoke proto-West Caucasian, much the same way as Semites conversed in proto-Semitic. However, because of geographical separation, the original language differentiated into three distinct entities: proto-Circassian, proto-Abkhaz, and proto-Ubykh.

According to recent research, Ubykh was originally closer to Abkhaz, but it subsequently underwent substantial Western Circassian influence. Some travellers thought that Ubykh was a dialect of Adiga. It may be possible that initially proto-West Caucasian split into proto-Circassian and proto-Abkhaz-Ubykh, which later divided into proto-Abkhaz and proto-Ubykh. These ancient languages were further ramified into divergent dialects.

There has been some interesting work on proto-Circassian, the forebear of all Circassian dialects, and even a dictionary was published. More recently some research was conducted on Proto-Abkhaz. Attempts have also been made at reconstruction of the system of Proto-Northwest Caucasian.

Origin and ancient relatives

Japhetic Theory and Sino-Caucasian super-family

The Japhetic Theory of the Soviet linguist N. Y. Marr proposed that all native language families in the Caucasus, including Northwest, Northeast, and South Caucasian belonged to the same ‘Japhetic’ language group, which in linguistics implied common ancestry.[1] This theory, one of the products of Soviet ideological drive to emphasize ethnic and linguistic unity of all Caucasian nations, was later discredited and superseded by the theory of language super-families, in which languages and language families that have common roots and basic lexicons are lumped together into conglomerations called ‘super-families’.

The linguist S. A. Starostin proposed the existence of the Sino-Caucasian super-family, which encompasses Nakh-Daghestani and the related Hurrian-Urartian and Etruscan,[2] and Northwest Caucasian, namely Circassian, Abkhaz-Abaza, and Ubykh, and the related Hattian. In addition, this super-family, also called ‘Dene-Caucasian’ or ‘Sino-Dene-Caucasian’, includes Sumerian and its proposed descendants Iberian and Basque,[3] Pelasgian (pre-Hellenic language of Greece), Sino-Tibetan, Burushaski, spoken in the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan,[4] Yeniseian, and Na-Dene, which includes Tlingit and Eyak in western Canada and Alaska and Navajo and Apache in southwest USA. It is thought that (Caucasian) Albanian, a dead language that used to be spoken in the Eastern Caucasus, was also related to Nakh-Daghestani. On the other hand, genetic connection between Kartvelian and North Caucasian is negated in this scheme, apparent links between the two groups being explained away as results of neighbourly contacts. Instead, Kartvelian, together with Indo-European, is posited in the ‘Nostratic’ super-family.

Starostin and S. L. Nikolaev, who had been spearheading an ambitious project to reconstruct proto-North Caucasian as the parent language of both proto-Northeast Caucasian and proto-Northwest Caucasian, came up with a comparative dictionary of North Caucasian languages. However, this work stirred up a controversy between its proponents and Johanna Nichols, who expressed her scepticism about these efforts to reproduce proto-North-Caucasian, negating the existence of relations between Northeast Caucasian and any other language group.[5] According to the other camp, it was the linguist Nikolai F. Troubetzkoy who first demonstrated firm connectedness between the two groups by establishing regular phonetic correspondences.

The third group in the Caucasian language family is South Caucasian or Kartvelian: Georgian, Mingrelian, Svan, Adjar, and Laz, all of which are spoken by about 4.5 million people in the Transcaucasus. Some linguists dispute the existence of any genetic link between North and South Caucasian. Also, suggested genetic links between the Caucasian languages and other languages and language families (Basque, Semito-Hamitic, Burushaski, Tibetan, Paleoasiatic, ancient languages of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, etc.) are open to serious doubt.

In 1919, E. Forrer established that Hattic, the oldest known language in Asia Minor, but extinct since the early second millennium BC, was not an Indo-European language, and proposed its kinship to ancient Abkhazian and Circassian. R. Bleichsteiner arrived at this conclusion roughly at the same time. Both researchers were struck by the structural similarities between Hattic and Abkhazo-Circassian, especially the inordinate use of prefixes.

General characteristics

The phonological structure of the NW Caucasian languages is unique, and is characterized by an extreme abundance of consonants and a scarcity of vowels. Some of the dialects were entered in The Guinness Book of Records on this account, before languages of greater number of consonants were discovered.

The vowel systems of these languages are simple and stable. There is a tendency to accumulate consonants in the same word. Declension is reduced to a minimum. Verbal forms are very complex; gerundive and participial forms being much used. Lexical material is analyzable into a small number of short roots and grammatical morphemes show semantic transparency. Abkhaz-Abaza, Circassian and Ubykh are characterised by large consonantal inventories, by mainly monosyllabic root-morphemes, and by an extreme polypersonalism within the verbal system, whereby virtually the entire syntactic structure of the clause is recapitulated in the verbal complex. These features have been the subject of study by a great number of scholars in the Soviet Union and the West.

From the perspective of a non-native speaker, Circassian presents a number of difficulties, some of which are often insurmountable. According to Olli Salmi, a Finnish expert on Kabardian, ‘the main problem of understanding Kabardian verbs is the great number of prefixes that can precede a verb stem, with pronominal prefixes in different places. Usually there are up to three pronominal prefixes, but some verbal prefixes can take pronominal prefixes as well. [These] places have to be indicated for non-native speakers.’ It has been suggested that for each verb in a lexical list, the infinitive and third person singular forms should be given at the very least, yet it is impossible for any dictionary of manageable proportions to include all verb forms.

Language divisions

Circassian is made up of Eastern and Western language groups. All Adigabze dialects are mutually intelligible. Face to face, an Adigean and a Kabardian could soon learn the peculiarities of each other’s dialect. Eastern Circassian is composed of two main dialects, Kabardian and Beslanay. However, these dialects are so close that some linguists consider the latter a divergent sub-dialect of the former. There has been a suggestion that there existed in the middle of the 19th century a dialect intermediate between Kabardian and Beslanay, which at first was thought to be an earlier form of Kabardian proper.

Kabardian in Kabardino-Balkaria is divided into four sub-dialects named after the main rivers in the republic: Balhq (Malka), Bax’sen (Bakhsan), Terch (Terek), and Shejem (Chegem). Some authorities divide the language into Greater and Lesser Kabardian, the dialects spoken in Kabarda to the west and east of the Terch (Terek), respectively. Lesser Kabardian is also informally called Jilax’steney. Outside the nominal republic there are two more dialects, one spoken by the Christian community in Mozdok in North Ossetia, and Kuban Kabardian in Adigea, spoken in a few villages. In the heyday of Kabarda’s dominance in the 16th to 18th centuries, Kabardian influenced Digor, a western dialect of Ossetian, in which Circassian loanwords are to be found in the semantic fields of economic life, especially in agriculture and animal husbandry.

Beslanay is spoken in a few villages in the Karachai-Cherkess Republic, and by a larger group in Turkey in many villages in the region of Çorum in Anatolia. The language was meticulously documented and recorded by Western scholars, like Georges Dumézil and his disciple Catherine Paris, and by native speakers, such as Orhan Alparslan.

Western Circassian shows more marked dialect-divisions than Kabardian, which is on the whole comparatively homogeneous. This is a reflection of the differences in tribal and social structures between Eastern and Western Circassians. It comprises many dialects: Temirgoi, Abzakh, Bzhedugh, Mokhosh, Shapsugh, Agwey, Hatuqwey, Nartkhuaj, Zhaney, Adaley, and so on. Each Kiakh tribe had its own dialect, and some larger ones had sub-dialects as well. However, after the end of the Russian-Circassian War many of these dialects were lost either through extinction of their speakers or assimilation by other Adiga tribes in the diaspora. At present, only representatives of Temirgoi, Bzhedugh and Shapsugh are found in significant numbers in the Caucasus. Abzakh is only spoken in one village, Hakurina-Habla, in the Caucasus. Nevertheless, it is still possible to salvage many of these lost dialects and record their characteristics and peculiarities.

Each branch of Circassian is represented by one literary and official language: Kabardian in Kabardino-Balkaria and the Karachai-Cherkess Republic, and Adigean in the Adigey Republic. Literary Kabardian is based on the dialect of Greater Kabarda. Literary Adigey is an advanced form of Temirgoi, with a substantive input of words and forms from Bzhedugh and Shapsugh. It is to be noted that modern West Circassian is based on the dialects of those tribes that remained in significant numbers in the Caucasus after the exodus and which have escaped the worst. It is noteworthy that both literary languages are based on the dialects spoken in the environs of the capitals of the respective republics. One notable difference between Kabardian and Adigean is that nouns in Adigean are subject to inflection, whereas they are stable in Kabardian.

Literary languages employ modified forms of the Cyrillic alphabet, which were introduced by the end of the 1930s. Both Kabardian and Adigean made the switch from Latin to Cyrillic script in 1937. In each case the one additional letter is the old Cyrillic capital I, which marks all ejectives in Adigean and some ejectives in Kabardian.

There are 57 letters in standard Kabardian (as opposed to symbols), 19 of which are digraphs (e.g. хъ, пI), five trigraphs (e.g. хъу), and one tetragraph (кхъу). These combinations are used to represent the inordinate number of consonants. In literary Adigean there are 50 letters of which 18 are digraphs (e.g. жъ, жь, гъ). Cyrillic ordering is followed. However, there is no uniform ordering of equivalent letters in the two languages, which causes some confusion. In addition, there is often no uniform representation of identical sounds, which fact could be rectified by common consent between the two language communities.

 

Circassian Orthographies

Official Kabardian Alphabet (Cyrillic)*

А	Э[6]	Б	В	Г	Гу	Гъ	Гъу	Д	Дж
Дз	Е	Ё	Ж	Жь	З	И	Й	К	Ку
КI	КIу	Къ	Къу	Кхъ	Кхъу	Л	Лъ	ЛI	М
Н	О	П	ПI	Р	С	Т	ТI	У	Ф
ФI	Х	Ху	Хь	Хъ	Хъу	Ц	ЦI	Ч	Ш
Щ	ЩI	Ы	Э[7]	Ю	Я	I	Iу	Ъ	Ь

               

* B. M. Kardanov (ed.), Kabardinsko-russki slovar [Kabardian-Russian Dictionary], Kabardino-Balkarian Science and Research Institute, Moscow: State Press of Foreign and National Dictionaries, 1957, p12.

 
Official Adigean Alphabet (Cyrillic)**

А	Б	В	Г	Гъ	Д	Дж	Дз	Е	Ё
Ж	Жъ	Жь	З	И	Й	К	Къ	КI	Л
Лъ	ЛI	М	Н	О	П	ПI	Р	С	Т
ТI	У	Ф	Х	Хъ	Хь	Ц	ЦI	Ч	Чъ
ЧI	Ш	Шъ	ШI	Щ	Ы	Э	Ю	Я	I
Ъ	Ь

             

** A. A. Hat’ene & Z. I. Ch’erashe, Adigabzem Yizexef Gwshi’alh [Explanatory Dictionary of the Adigean Language], Bzem, Literaturem, Istoriem ya Adige Nauchne-Issledovatelske Institut [Adigean Science and Research Institute of Language, Literature and History], Maikop: Circassian Book Press, 1960, pxvi.

---

[1] See W. K. Mathews, The Japhetic Theory, London, 1948, and L. L. Thomas, The Linguistic Theories of N. Y. Marr, Berkeley, 1957.

[2] Northeast Caucasian, which is spoken by about 3.5 million people in the Caucasus, is divided into the Nakh group of languages, Chechen, Ingush and Bats, and the Daghestani group, including Avar, Lezghian, Tabasaran, Dargwa and Lak. For Nakh–Etruscan connections, see R. S. Pliev, 1992.

[3] In his article ‘Is Basque Isolated?’ (Dhumbadji!, vol. 2, no. 2, May 1995), J. D. Bengston defends the case for a Basque–North Caucasian connection. Furthermore, in ‘The Macro-Caucasic Hypothesis’ (Dhumbadji!, vol. 1, no. 2, May 1993), he outlines evidence ‘for the existence of a Macro-Caucasic language phylum, encompassing Basque, Caucasic and Burushaski, and held to be at a time depth comparable to that of Indo-European.’

[4] For further details on pre-historic Caucasian–Burushaski links, see K. Tuite, 1998, 1997.

[5] See S. A. Starostin and S. L. Nikolaev, 1994; Nichols’ critique in J. Nichols, May 1997; Starostin’s retort in S. Starostin, May 1997.

[6] Schwa in Circassian words.

[7] In loan words.