Kaskian (Kaskean) was the language of the Kaskians (Kaska) of northeastern

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The r ...

in the mountains along the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, ...

coast. The ''

Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

'' lists the Kaskians as non–Indo-European. There are a number of theories regarding to which language family the Kaskian language belonged. It is sometimes suspected that Kaskian was related to the pre-Hittite

Hattic language Hattic, or Hattian, was a non-Indo-European agglutinative language spoken by the Hattians in Asia Minor in the 2nd millennium BC. Scholars call the language "Hattic" to distinguish it from Hittite, the Indo-European language of the Hittite Em ...

, based on toponyms and

personal names A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known ...

; the Hattic moon god was named Kasku. Conversely, the Kaskian language may have been an

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, ...

language, perhaps related to

Thraco-Phrygian The Thracian language () is an extinct and poorly attested language, spoken in ancient times in Southeast Europe by the Thracians. The linguistic affinities of the Thracian language are poorly understood, but it is generally agreed that it was ...

. There may also be connections to the Northwest Caucasian languages; the name ''Kaskian'' may be

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical e ...

with an old name for

Circassia Circassia (; also known as Cherkessia in some sources; ady, Адыгэ Хэку, Адыгей, lit=, translit=Adıgə Xəku, Adıgey; ; ota, چرکسستان, Çerkezistan; ) was a country and a historical region in the along the northeast ...

, and the name of one of the tribes in the Kaskian confederation, the Abešla, may be cognate with the endonym of the

Abkhaz people Abkhazians (russian: Абхазы), or Abkhazs ( ab, Аԥсуаа, Aṕswaа, ), are a Northwest Caucasian ethnic group, mainly living in Abkhazia, a disputed region on the northeastern coast of the Black Sea. A large Abkhaz diaspora populatio ...

and some Circassian people, suggesting the Kaskians proper and Abešla might have been the ancestors of the

Circassians The Circassians (also referred to as Cherkess or Adyghe; Adyghe and Kabardian: Адыгэхэр, romanized: ''Adıgəxər'') are an indigenous Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation native to the historical country-region of Circassia ...

and other Caucasian peoples. It has been conjectured that Kaskian might belong to the Zan family of languages, and have affinities to Megrelian or Laz.

References

{{Eurasian languages Languages of ancient Anatolia Unclassified languages of Asia stub