D. Ashkhamaf

Daud Ashkhamaf (; ; 1897 – 23 July 1946) was a Circassian linguist, folklorist, educator, and campaigner against illiteracy. He was one of the initiators and founders of Circassian studies. He is credited as one of the linguists who was involved in the standardization of the Adyghe language.

Biography Ashkhamaf was born in the aul of Khakurinokhabl, Kuban Oblast. He graduated from an Islamic school in Ufa, and graduated in 1915 as a master of the Arabic language. From 1920 to 1925, he worked as a teacher in Khakurinokhabl, an inspector of Circassian schools for the Maykop District Department of Public Education, a regional school inspector, and the director of a new Adyghe experimental demonstration school. He later pursued postgraduate studies at the Institute of Ethnic and National Cultures of the Peoples of the East in Moscow, specialising in Caucasian languages. (1925–1929) He was a postgraduate student of Professor N. F. Yakovlev, with whom he collaborated on the standardization of the Adyghe language.

In 1927, as a member of the Society for the Study of the Adyghe Autonomous Region (alongside S. Siyukhov, I. Tsey, and I. Navruzov), he stood at the origins of the research field known as "Circassian studies" and the initiative to organize the Adyghe Republican Institute of Humanitarian Studies named after T.M. Kerashev.

1929–1931: Scientific secretary, then deputy director of the Adyghe Research Institute of Local Lore; teacher at the Adyghe Pedagogical College. 1931–1934: Head of the Department of Adyghe Language and Literature at the Historical and Philological Faculty of the Krasnodar Pedagogical Institute. 1938–1941: Head of the Language Section of the Adyghe Research Institute of Cultural Construction. 1941–1946: Head of the Department of Russian Language and Literature at the Maykop Teachers' Institute.

Death and legacy. He died on July 23, 1946. In recognition of his services as a scientist and educator, and his inextricable connection with the institute, D. A. Ashkhamaf was buried in the courtyard of the institute. In the 1960s, his remains were transferred to the city cemetery due to the construction of a new institute building. The Scientific Library of Adyghe State University (ASU) is named after Daud Ashkhamaf. A street in Maykop and a school in the aul of Khakurinokhabl also bear his name.

Major works Lhag'u (The Path) (1926) Short Grammar of the Adyghe (Kyakh) Language for Schools and Self-Education (1930) Adyghe Language Textbook for Primary Schools (1933–1937) Grammar and Spelling, Vol. 2 (1933) Russian Language: Textbook for the 4th Grade of Adyghe Schools (1934) On the Principles of Constructing Adyghe Orthography (1934) Grammar of the Adyghe Language, Part 2: Syntax (1936) Adyghe Orthography (1936) Project of the Adyghe Alphabet on a Russian Basis (1936) Adyghe Orthography (1938) Brief Survey of Adyghe Dialects (1939) Adyghe Spelling Dictionary (1940) Grammar of the Adyghe Literary Language (1941) Primer of the Adyghe Language (1944)