Three distinct dialects are recognized:[7] Outside of the southern Caucasus, other varieties exist that are either considered dialects, or distinct languages: The Nogais, descended from the peoples of the Golden Horde, take their name and that of their language from the grandson of Genghis Khan, Nogai Khan, who ruled the nomadic people west of the Danube toward the end of the 13th century.

When speakers wanted to write, they utilized the Kypchak or Chagatai languages, which were similar to Nogai and were written in the Perso-Arabic script.

It was devised by the Nogai academic Abdul-Khamid Shershenbievich Dzhanibekov [ru] (Djanibek), following principles adopted for all Turkic languages.

Some went to Turkey and Romania, while others stayed within the Russian Empire, settling in northern Dagestan and neighbouring areas of Chechnya and Stavropol Kray.

Today, it is mostly spoken by the older generation; however, there are still younger speakers, as there are some villages in Turkey where it is a common mode of communication.

In 1973, two small Nogai-language newspapers were being published, one in Karachay–Cherkessia and another in the Dagestan Autonomous SSR (Ленин йолы), but most speakers never heard of these publications, and the papers did not reach Nogai villages.