Bats people

Batsbi

ბაცბი
A late nineteenth-century photograph of a Batsbur wedding in the village of Zemo Alvani (eastern Georgia). The identity of the photographer is unknown, as is the date and the names of those depicted.
Total population
(about 3,000 at most)
Regions with significant populations
Tusheti (Georgia), Kakheti (Georgia)
Languages
Bats, Georgian
Religion
Christian (Georgian Orthodox)
Related ethnic groups
Other Nakh peoples: Chechens, Ingushs, and Kists Other Georgians — specifically the Tushetians, Georgians of Kakheti and perhaps the Khevsurs

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 (წოვათუშები) 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.

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 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.

The renowned Georgian ethnographer Sergi Makalatia wrote in his study of Tusheti that "the Tsova-Tush speak their own language, which is related to Ingush and Kist. This language has, however, borrowed many words from Georgian; the Tsova-Tush speak it both at home and among each other. Everybody knows the Tsova language. It is shameful not to speak it. Children start speaking Tsova-Tush and learn Georgian later."

Nowadays, all Batsbi speak Georgian (usually with a Tushetian or Kakhetian accent). Only a handful speak Batsbur with any kind of proficiency.

The Batsbi have retained very little of their separate cultural traits, and their customs and traditions now resemble those of other Eastern Georgian mountaineers, particularly those of the Tush (obviously, but there are also deeper pagan-religious links between the Tush and the neighbouring Khevsur).