Goodbye to a Language?

For centuries the Batsbi proudly populated the highlands of Tusheti, in north-eastern Georgia. Their language, Bats - also known as Tush-Tsova - was part of that pride. Bats belongs to the Nakh family of Caucasian languages, like Chechen and Ingush; but since it is not mutually intelligible with either, it is unique. Little remain of that glorious past. The Bats, is inexorably fading, threatened by demography and assimilation with the Georgian language. Unesco lists it among the “severely endangered” langu