Circassian People

Circassian People

The Adyghe or Adygs (Adyghe: Адыгэ or Adǝgă, Arabic: شركس/جركس‎, Jarkas/Sharkas, Turkish: çerkez, Persian: چرکس‎, Charkas), also often known as Circassians or Cherkess, are a North Caucasian ethnic group who were displaced in the course of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 19th century, especially after the Russian–Circassian War of 1862.

Adyghe people mainly speak Circassian (called Adyghe and it has 12 dialects out of which 4 are mostly used. The Abzakh & Shapsogh dialects in the west, the Bjadogh in the South west (the Black Sea shore), and the Kabardin (Kabartai) in the Center. Predominant religions include Sunni Islam and Russian Orthodox Christianity. There remain about 700,000 speakers of Circassian in Adygea (Adygeans), Karachay–Cherkessia (just Circassians) and Kabardino-Balkaria (Kabards), as well as a number in the Russian Federation outside these republics.

The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization estimates that there are as many as 3.7 million "ethnic Circassians" in the diaspora outside the Circassian republics (meaning that only one in seven "ethnic Circassians" is a speaker of the Circassian language), of whom about 2 million live in the Republic of Turkey, 700,000 in the Russian Federation, about 150,000 in the Middle East, and about 50,000 in western countries (Europe and USA).