Tevfik Esenç (; ; 1904 – 7 October 1992) was an Ubykh Circassian citizen of Turkey, known for being the last speaker of the Ubykh language. 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 extensive and detailed knowledge of the Ubykh language and culture. He was fluent in Ubykh, Adyghe, and Turkish.
Biography
Esenç was raised by his Ubykh-speaking grandparents for a time in the village of Hacıosman (Ubykh: Lek'uaşüa /lɜkʷʼɐ́ɕʷɜ/; 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. There, he was able to do a great deal of work with the French linguist Georges Dumézil and his associate Georges Charachidzé 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 (1903–86);(see his 'Dictionnaire de la Langue Oubykh', 1963, Universitetsvorlaget) the British George Hewitt,http://georgehewitt.net who 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, who has written on Ubykh settlements and 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, culture history, and customs of the Ubykh people. He spoke Turkish, Ubykh, and Adyghe (West Circassian), allowing some comparative work to be done between these two members of the Northwest Caucasian family. A purist, his idiolect 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 Georges Charachidzé:
Esenç died on 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 the international Conference on Northwest Caucasian Linguistics at Boğaziçi University, in memory of Dumézil and Esenç.
See also List of last known speakers of languages
References
External links 55 audio recordings of Tevfik Esenç speaking Ubykh, with transcriptions (Pangloss collection, 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.