Transcaucasian

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. Relating to the region located south of the Caucasus Mountains, originating from or pertaining to the peoples, languages, or cultures of that area, or describing something geographically situated beyond the Caucasus range
2. Connected with the area and population lying southward of the Caucasus Mountains, denoting people or languages from that region, or referring to entities existing beyond those mountains
3. Describing the southern side of the Caucasus Mountains, involving the nations, traditions, or languages found there, or designating something on the far side geographically from the Caucasus

Etymology: Transcaucasian is about as transparent as a geographical term gets: it is built from "Transcaucasia" plus the suffix "-an", which turns a place name into an adjective or noun for its people, languages or things. The base word itself is a compound of "trans-", meaning "across" or "beyond", and "Caucasia", the region named after the Caucasus Mountains. The prefix tells you the perspective: Transcaucasia is the land on the far side of the range as seen from the north, from the standpoint of Russia and Europe. That perspective is the real point of the word. The Caucasus divides the Russian plain from the lands to the south, so the region below the mountains only acquired a single label once outsiders began thinking of it as a unit. The term is used both for people and languages from that area and, in the broader sense recorded in dictionaries, for things existing beyond the range, so it depends entirely on which side of the mountains the speaker is standing.