Bats people
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The Bats people (Georgian: ბაცი) or the Batsbi (ბაცბი) are a small Nakh-speaking community in Georgia who are also known as the Tsova-Tushs (წოვა-თუშები) after the Tsova Gorge in the historic Georgian province of Tusheti, where they migrated from the North Caucasus in the 16th century.
Most of the Bats people currently live in the village of Zemo Alvani in the Kakheti region, but their families are scattered elsewhere in Georgia. Part of the community still retain their own Bats language, which has come under a heavy influence of Georgian and is mutually unintelligible with other Nakh languages such as Chechen and Ingush. This language is unwritten and the Bats community generally use Georgian as a language of literacy. Their customs and traditions resemble those of other eastern Georgian mountaineers with whom they share a common national (Georgian) self-identity. Therefore, the people of the Bats provenance are not generally considered as an ethnic minority in Georgia.
The group should not be confused with the Kists, also a Nakh-speaking people, who live in the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia.
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