Caucasian languages - several possibly unrelated families of languages, spoken in the Caucasus.
- South Caucasian languages or Kartvelian languages
e.g. Georgian, Svan
- Northwest Caucasian languages or Abkhaz-Adyg languages
e.g. Circassian, Abxaz
- Northeast Caucasian languages or Dagestan languages
e.g. Avar, Daghi, Lezgian
- North Central Caucasian languages or Nakh languages or Vaynakh languages
e.g. Chechen
The last two groups sometimes are called Nakh-Dagestan languages. They have a number of common features in phonetics and grammar, for example, ergative case and sentence structure, but their genetic relationship is not clear.
The Caucasus has the largest concentration of ergative languages in Europe. All of these language families are characterised by an ergative system; also, they tend to be verb-focused, with much information about nouns encoded in the verb.