The Caucasian Avars are an ethnic group living in southern Dagestan. Any connection between them and the Avars who invaded central Europe and the Balkans in the early Dark Ages is problematic: these Avars speak a Caucasic tongue akin to Circassian and Lak rather than the Turko-Mongolic language the Balkan Avars are thought to have used. Still, the name is suggestive - sundered folk do sometimes adopt divergent speech, and the issue is not satisfactorily resolved. They were Georgian Orthodox Christians during the early Middle Ages, but Sunni Islam is the dominant faith today. The Avars number approximately 600,000 and are now scattered throughout Georgia, Southern Russia, and Azerbaijan.