Tevfik Esenç (1904 – 7 October 1992) was a Turkish citizen of Circassian origin, known for being the last speaker of the Ubykh language. He was fluent in Ubykh, Adyghe and Turkish. After his death in 1992, the Ubykh language went extinct despite the efforts and work of numerous linguists to revive it. Nevertheless, Esenç is single-handedly responsible for the world's current knowledge of Ubykh language and culture being as extensive and detailed as it is.

Biography

Esenç was raised by his Ubykh-speaking grandparents for a time in the village of Hacıosman ( Ubykh: ''Lak°'ạ́ṡ°a''; Adyghe: ''Hundjahabl'') in Turkey, and he served a term as the ''muhtar'' (mayor) of that village, before receiving a post in the civil service of

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

. There, he was able to do a great deal of work with the French

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

Georges Dumézil and his associate

Georges Charachidzé Georges Charachidzé (Giorgi Sharashidze; ka, გიორგი შარაშიძე) (February 11, 1930 – February 20, 2010) was a French- Georgian scholar of the Caucasian cultures. His most important works focused on the history of ...

to help record his language, although not all the writings of Charachidzé (1930-2010) have been published. Others who met Esenç and produced work on Ubykh are: the Norwegian Hans Vogt (1911–92); the Britis
George Hewitt
who in made recordings with Esenç in Istanbul;the recordings are available
on the Net; his account of his meetings in 1974 has been published — 'Encountering Ubykh(s)’, in ''Arxeologija i ètnografija pontijsko-kavkazskogo regiona 5'', 195-204, 2016: Krasnodar; see also his 'The labialised sibilants of Ubykh (North West Caucasian)’, in ''Revue des Etudes Géorgiennes et Caucasiennes, 2'', 1986, 21-30) the Abkhazian

Viacheslav Chirikba Viacheslav Chirikba is a linguist and politician from Abkhazia. He was Minister for Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia between 2011 and 2016. Personal life Chirikba was born on 17 March 1959 in Gagra. From 1966 until 1976, he attended School No.5 in ...

, who has written on Ubykh settlements an
Ubykh surnames
and the Turkish linguist A. Sumru Özsoy. Having an excellent memory and understanding quickly the goals of Dumézil and the other linguists who came to visit him, he was a primary source of not only the Ubykh language, but also of the

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

history, and customs of the

Ubykh people The Ubykh ( Ubykh: Пэху / Туахы, ''Pəxu / Tuaxy''; , ''Ubyx''; russian: Убыхи; tr, Ubıhlar / Vubıhlar) are one of the twelve Circassian tribes, representing one of the twelve stars on the green-and-gold Circassian flag. Along w ...

. He spoke Turkish and Ubykh, and also a dialect of Adyghe (West Circassian), allowing some comparative work to be done between these two members of the

Northwest Caucasian The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes ''Pontic languages'' (from the historical region of Pontus, in contrast to ''Caspian languages'' for the Northeast Cauc ...

family. A purist, his

idiolect Idiolect is an individual's unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This differs from a dialect, a common set of linguistic characteristics shared among a group of people. Th ...

of Ubykh was considered by Dumézil as the closest thing to a standard "literary" Ubykh language that existed. He finished his work for Ubykh with the following speech to his long-time collaborator

: Esenç died in the night of 7 October 1992, at the age of 88; he was buried in the village cemetery of Hacıosman, his birthplace, alongside his wife Emine. He was survived by three sons and two daughters. In 1994, A. Sumru Özsoy organized an international conference, namely Conference on Northwest Caucasian Linguistics, at

Boğaziçi University Boğaziçi University ( tr, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi), also known as Bosphorus University, is a major research university in Istanbul, Turkey. Its main campus is located on the European side of the Bosphorus strait. It has six faculties and tw ...

in memory of Dumézil and Esenç.

References

External links

55 audio recordings
of Tevfik Esenç speaking Ubykh, with transcriptions (

Pangloss collection The Pangloss Collection is a digital library whose objective is to store and facilitate access to audio recordings in endangered languages of the world. Developed by the LACITO centre of CNRS in Paris, the collection provides free online access ...

, CNRS, Paris) *
Account of the burial of the last speaker of Ubykh, Tevfik Esenç
from Lingoblog.dk
Trailer of “I had a dream — In the footsteps of the Last Ubykh”
– a 66' documentary (2019) on the life of Tevfik Esenç, produced by his granddaughter Burcu Esenç. {{DEFAULTSORT:Esenc, Tevfik 1904 births 1992 deaths People from Manyas Turkish people of Ubykh descent Last known speakers of a language Ubykh language Mayors of places in Turkey