Bats people

The Bats people (Georgian: ბაცი) or the Batsbi (ბაცბი) are a small Nakh-speaking community in the country of Georgia who are also known as the Ts’ova-Tush (წოვა-თუშები) after the Ts’ova Gorge in the historic Georgian province of Tusheti (known to them as "Tsovata"), where they are believed to have settled after migrating from the North Caucasus in the 16th century (see debate). The group should not be confused with the neighbouring Kists – also a Nakh-speaking people, migrants from Chechnya – who live in the nearby Pankisi Gorge.

Language and customs

Part of the community still retains its own Bats language, "batsbur mott", which has adopted many Georgian loan-words and grammatical rules and is mutually unintelligible with the two other Nakh languages, Chechen and Ingush. As Prof. Joanna Nichols put it, '[the Batsbur] language is related to Chechen and Ingush roughly as Czech is related to Russian and Ukrainian [and the Batsbi] not belong to vai naakh nor their language to vai mott, though any speaker of Chechen or Ingush can immediately tell that the language is closely related and can understand some phrases of it. The Batsbi have not traditionally followed Vainakh customs or law, and they consider themselves Georgians.' Batsbur language is unwritten and the Batsbi have used Georgian as a language of literacy and trade for centuries.