The months in Circassian

Updated October 7, 2026 · 4 min read

Circassian has its own names for the months, and Kabardian (East Circassian) and Adyghe (West Circassian) use different ones. Several are old words for the seasons’ work and weather. Here they are as the Circassian app teaches them in the “Months & Calendar” unit of its two courses.

Every word here is a word the app teaches, checked against a second source: the Kabardian–Russian dictionary (Apazhev and Kokov, 2008), the app’s Adyghe dictionary, the app’s audio course (its scripts were reviewed by a native speaker of each dialect) or the Kabardian and Adyghe Wikipedias. A word that could not be checked this way is not on the page.

The months in Kabardian and Adyghe

Kabardian (East Circassian) is on the left, Adyghe (West Circassian) on the right. Tap the speaker button to hear a word: the audio is the app’s own, the same as in its lessons. The Latin line under each word is the app’s spelling.

An empty cell means no second source confirmed the app’s word there; “Good to know” says why.

Good to know

Where the Kabardian names come from. The Kabardian Wikipedia’s article on the calendar says the month names in use today were chosen by the staff of the newspaper «Адыгэ псалъэ» from older names. For February they took Мазае, the word the Shapsugs use, and for May Накъыгъэ, another Shapsug word.

January: the winter шылэ. The same article says ЩIышылэ was made from шылэ with щIы in front, for щIымахуэ шылэ, so that it would not be confused with the summer шылэ. The Kabardian–Russian dictionary has both: гъэмахуэ шылэ, the middle of summer, its forty hottest days, and щIымахуэ шылэ, the middle of winter, its forty coldest days (p. 577).

Honey and hay. In the Kabardian–Russian dictionary, ФокIадэ, September, is literally “a tub of honey” (p. 464); Мэкъуауэгъуэ, June, is first of all “haymaking time” (p. 320); and Бадзэуэгъуэ, July, is the hottest part of summer (p. 31).

Moon and month. The word for “month” is мазэ in both dialects, the same word as “moon” (Kabardian–Russian dictionary, p. 313). The Adyghe course adds it to two of its month names, щылэ мазэ and мэлылъфэгъу мазэ.

Three spellings to know. The app teaches ЩакIуэгъуэ for November; the Kabardian Wikipedia’s list writes it the same way, while its own text and the Kabardian–Russian dictionary (p. 583) write щэкIуэгъуэ. For August, the Kabardian lesson writes ШыщхьэуIу and the Kabardian Wikipedia ШыщхьэӀу, so that cell stays empty here; for December, the Adyghe lesson writes тыгъэгъазэ and the app’s Adyghe dictionary and the Adyghe Wikipedia тыгъэгъаз, so that cell is empty too, until a native speaker checks them.

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