The Dvals were a historic people living in modern-day South Ossetia and some nearby regions, as well as the southern parts of North Ossetia (South and West of the Gligvs, South and East of the Malkh). They integrated themselves into the Georgian kingdom and produced a number of fine Georgian calligraphers and historians. They also produced an Orthodox saint: Saint Nicholas of Dvaleti. The language of the Dvals is thought to be Nakh by many historians, though there is a rival camp which argues for its status as a close relative of Ossetic. Another theory posits that the Dvals were of Karvelian (Georgian) origin. Various evidence given to support the Nakh theory (Different scholars use different arguments.) includes the presence of Nakh placenames in former Dval territory, taken as evidence of Nakh–Svan contact, which probably would have indicated the Nakh nature of the Dvals or of people there before them, and the presence of a foreign-origin Dval clan among the Chechens. The Dvals were assimilated by the Georgians and the Ossetians. It is thought that Dval did not become fully extinct until the 18th century, making the Dvals the most recent Nakh people known to have disappeared.