[10] Kumyk had been a lingua-franca of the bigger part of the Northern Caucasus, from Dagestan to Kabarda, until the 1930s[11][12][13] and was an official language of communication between the North-Eastern Caucasian nations and the Russian administration.

The historic literary culture of Kumyks and the entire region of Dagestan, North Caucasus, and Southern Ukraine was the Cuman language.

[20] The orthography of Kumyk was derived from the Arabic script, although with minor modifications, only several additional letters, same as in Persian alphabet, to represent consonants.

In the beginning of the 20th century, parallel with other Turkic-Muslim minority ethnic groups within the Russian Empire, Kumyk speaking literaturists decided to undertake the task of standardization and improvement of the Arabic script.

The first attempt at compiling an improved orthographic convention was done in 1915, by "Abdulhalim Jengutaevsky" in the preface of his Kumyk translation of the poem Layla and Majnun, published in Temir-Khan-Shura.

[20] With the fall of the Soviet Union, with an increased prospect in international connection among Turkic peoples, a project to develop Latin alphabet again, but derived from modern Turkish orthograhpy was undertaken.

Irchi Kazak (Ийрчы Къазакъ Yırçı Qazaq; born 1839) is usually considered to be the greatest poet of the Kumyk language.

[citation needed] The Kumyk language was learned by Russian classical authors such as Leo Tolstoy[25] and Mikhail Lermontov,[26] both of whom served in the Caucasus.

The language is present in such works of Tolstoy as "The Raid",[27] Cossacks,[28] Hadji Murat, and Lermontov's - "A Hero of Our Time",[29][26] Bestuzhev-Marlinsky's - "Molla-nur" and "Ammalat-bek".