[CIRCASSIAN IMMIGRATION / NY IMPRINT / ADYGHE LANGUAGE WITH ROMAN SCRIPT / NORTH CAUCASIA] Adighe folklor No. 2 [i.e., The Adighe folklore]

GEBELLI, KUBE CSABAN; DOKTOR TSEY JAWAD IDRISS (Prep. by).

Privately Published, New York, October 1963.

Original yellow wrappers. Demy 8vo. (21,5 x 14 cm). In Adyghe (Circassian with Latin letters). [2], 23-54 pp. Stains on covers, otherwise a good copy.

Excessively rare first edition of the second book of this compilation of the Circassian folklore in the Adyghe language. The book includes songs and gibzes [i.e., laments] in dialects of Shapsug and Bzhedug used around the Black Sea and the Kuban River.

The Roman-based script of the Adyghe language was devised as early as 1912 and refined over 30 years in several publications in both Turkey and Syria by Harun Batequ for his native Bzhedugh dialect. Kube Csaban Gebelli subsequently published some Circassian materials in a similarly Roman-based (but not an identical) script in Syria and the USA (e.g. his Adighe Psetlezhxer in 1953, Adighe Ueredizhxer in 1954 and this presented book here).

As of January 2024, OCLC shows three copies worldwide (67316538 & 41459798) in Universitaire Bibliotheken Leiden, the University of Oxford, and the New York Public Library System.