Avar is the single largest immediate source for loans into Bezhta, and contact with Avar has been intense for at least some centuries, with Avar serving as the main means of communication with the outside world, in addition to personal meetings between speakers of Bezhta and Avar. It is difficult to justify the assignment of a particular date to the beginning of this process, but as a rule of thumb we have taken the beginning of the eighteenth century, as it was during the eighteenth century that the Bezhta speaking area was incorporated into a larger, religiously Muslim community under Avar leadership. In addition to loans of indigenous Avar origin, Avar has also provided the major conduit for the introduction into Bezhta of words of ultimate Arabic, Persian, or Turkic origin.