Tevfik Esenç

Tevfik Esenç (1904 - October 7, 1992) was a Turkish farmer, specifically of Circassian origin, famous for having been the last known speaker of Ubijé, as well as for his work in the research tasks in that language. Esenç was raised for a time by his Ubijé-speaking grandparents in the town of Hacıosman, Turkey. He served one term as muhtar or mayor of the town before receiving a post as a civil servant in Istanbul.

There he had the opportunity to meet the French linguist Georges Dumézil, with whom he did a great job to preserve his language. Endowed with an excellent memory and quickly understanding the intentions of Dumézil and other visiting linguists, he was the main source of data and information not only on the Ubijé language but also on its mythology, culture and customs. He not only spoke Ubije, but also Turkish and the Hakuchi dialect of the Adige language, which allowed some comparative work between the two languages. He was a purist and his idiolect of Ubijé is considered by some to be the closest thing Ubijé ever got to a standard literary language.

Esenç died in 1992 at the age of 88. The inscription that he wanted to appear on his grave as his epitaph was as follows:

«This is the tomb of Tevfik Esenç. He was the last person able to speak the language they called ubijé."