Optilingo

I'm Jonty Yamisha, an ethnic Circassian, and OptiLingo is my brainchild. I speak the Kabardian dialect of the Circassian language, but I didn't always. My parents came to the United States as refugees and worked hard to ensure I had a solid education. This meant a heavy emphasis on academics and English. As a child, I was also exposed to many different languages, including Circassian, Arabic, Turkish, Russian, Hebrew and German. Growing up, however, I spoke none of these. At age 31, I decided to learn my ethnic language. I just had a few problems: I'd never been to any country where Circassian was spoken. Circassian is a poorly documented language. There are limited books, magazines, radio or videos in the language. Circassian is an endangered language and may disappear some day. Oh, did I happen to leave out that the few materials that exist on Circassian are written in Russian, Turkish or Arabic? I should also point out that the language has 56 letters, with sounds that don't exist in any other spoken language on the planet. I felt overwhelmed.