Northwest Caucasian

The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo–Adyghean, Abkhazo–Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes Pontic languages (from Ancient Greek, pontos, referring to the Black Sea, in contrast to the Northeast Caucasian languages as the Caspian languages), is a family of languages spoken in the northwestern Caucasus region, chiefly in three Russian republics (Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia), the disputed territory of Abkhazia, Georgia, and Turkey, with smaller communities scattered throughout the Middle East.

The group's relationship to any other language family is uncertain and unproven. One language, Ubykh, became extinct in 1992, while all of the other languages are in some form of endangerment, with UNESCO classifying all as either "vulnerable", "endangered", or "severely endangered". Within the Northwest Caucasian languages, only Abkhaz has a first-set code in the ISO 639 standard.