The Laz or Lazuri language () is a Kartvelian language spoken by the

Laz people The Laz people, or Lazi ( ''Lazi''; ka, ლაზი, ''lazi''; or ჭანი, ''ch'ani''; ), are a Kartvelian languages, Kartvelian ethnic group native to the South Caucasus, who mainly live in Black Sea coastal regions of Black Sea Region, ...

on the southeastern shore of the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

. In 2007, it was estimated that there were around 20,000 native speakers in

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, in a strip of land extending from Melyat to the Georgian border (officially called Lazistan until 1925), and around 1,000 native speakers around Adjara in

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. There are also around 1,000 native speakers of Laz in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Laz is not historically a

written language A written language is the representation of a language by means of writing. This involves the use of visual symbols, known as graphemes, to represent linguistic units such as phonemes, syllables, morphemes, or words. However, written language is ...

literary language Literary language is the Register (sociolinguistics), register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic writing, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. ...

. As of 1989, Benninghaus could write that the Laz themselves had no interest in writing in Laz.

Classification

Laz is one of the four

Kartvelian languages The Kartvelian languages ( ; ka, ქართველური ენები, tr; also known as South Caucasian or Kartvelic languages Boeder (2002), p. 3) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Geor ...

also known as South Caucasian languages. Along with Mingrelian, it forms the Zan branch of this

Kartvelian language family The Kartvelian languages ( ; ka, ქართველური ენები, tr; also known as South Caucasian or Kartvelic languages Boeder (2002), p. 3) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Geor ...

. The two languages are very closely related, to the extent that some linguists refer to Mingrelian and Laz as dialects or regional variants of a single '' Zan language'', a view held officially in the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

era and still so in Georgia today. In general, however, Mingrelian and Laz are considered as separate languages, due both to the long-standing separation of their communities of speakers (500 years) and to a lack of mutual intelligibility.

History

Although the Laz people are recorded in written sources repeatedly from antiquity onwards, the earliest written evidence of their language is from 1787. There is a poem in

Evliya Çelebi Dervish Mehmed Zillî (25 March 1611 – 1682), known as Evliya Çelebi (), was an Ottoman Empire, Ottoman explorer who travelled through his home country during its cultural zenith as well as neighboring lands. He travelled for over 40 years, rec ...

's ''

Seyahatnâme ''Seyahatname'' () is the name of a literary form and tradition whose examples can be found throughout centuries in the Middle Ages around the Islamic world, starting with the Arab travellers of the Umayyad period. In a more specific sense, the ...

'' (17th century) that has been interpreted as Laz, but it is more likely to represent

Pontic Greek Pontic Greek (, ; or ''Romeika'') is a variety of Modern Greek indigenous to the Pontus region on the southern shores of the Black Sea, northeastern Anatolia, and the Eastern Turkish and Caucasus region. An endangered Greek language variety ...

. The first definite record of Laz in 1787 was produced by the Spanish Jesuit linguist

Lorenzo Hervás Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro was a Spanish Jesuit and philologist; born at Horcajo, 1 May 1735; died at Rome, 24 August 1809. He is one of the most important authors, together with Juan Andrés, Antonio Eximeno or Celestino Mutis, of the Spani ...

. It was largely ignored because Hervás conflated the name of the language with that of the

Lezgian language Lezgian, also called Lezgi or Lezgin , is a Northeast Caucasian language. It is spoken by the Lezgins, who live in southern Dagestan (Russia); northern Azerbaijan; and to a much lesser degree Turkmenistan; Uzbekistan; Kazakhstan; Turkey, and ...

, calling it ''lingua Lasga, detta ancora Laza, e Lassa''. In 1823, Julius Heinrich von Klaproth published a list of 67 Laz words with German translations in his ''Asia Polyglotta''. He identified three dialects. In 1844, Georg Rosen published in German the first monograph on Laz, ''Über die Sprache der Lazen''. In 1887, the British diplomat Demetrius Rudolph Peacock included Laz among five languages of the western Caucasus in a paper designed for the use of English-speaking diplomats.

Statistics in Turkey (1935–2007)

Geographical distribution

Mother_language_in_1965_Turkey_census_-_Laz

The

Georgian language Georgian (, ) is the most widely spoken Kartvelian language, Kartvelian language family. It is the official language of Georgia (country), Georgia and the native or primary language of 88% of its population. It also serves as the literary langu ...

, along with its relatives Mingrelian, Laz, and Svan, comprise the Kartvelian language family. The initial breakup of Proto-Kartvelian is estimated to have been around 2500–2000 B.C., with the divergence of Svan from Proto-Kartvelian (Nichols, 1998). Assyrian, Urartian, Greek, and Roman documents reveal that in early historical times (2nd–1st millennia B.C.), the numerous Kartvelian tribes were in the process of migrating into the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

from the southwest. The northern coast and coastal mountains of

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

were dominated by Kartvelian peoples at least as far west as

Samsun Samsun is a List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, city on the north coast of Turkey and a major Black Sea port. The urban area recorded a population of 738,692 in 2022. The city is the capital of Samsun Province which has a population of ...

. Their eastward migration may have been set in motion by the

fall of Troy The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Me ...

(dated by

Eratosthenes Eratosthenes of Cyrene (; ; – ) was an Ancient Greek polymath: a Greek mathematics, mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theory, music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of A ...

to 1183 B.C.). It thus appears that the Kartvelians represent an intrusion into the Georgian plain from northeastern Anatolia, displacing their predecessors, the unrelated Northwest Caucasian and

Vainakh peoples The Nakh peoples are a group of North Caucasian languages, North Caucasian peoples identified by their use of the Nakh languages and other cultural similarities. These are chiefly the ethnic Chechen people, Chechen, Ingush people, Ingush and Ba ...

, into the Caucasian highlands (Tuite, 1996; Nichols, 2004). The oldest known settlement of the Lazoi is the town of Lazos or "old Lazik", which

Arrian Arrian of Nicomedia (; Greek: ''Arrianos''; ; ) was a Greek historian, public servant, military commander, and philosopher of the Roman period. '' The Anabasis of Alexander'' by Arrian is considered the best source on the campaigns of ...

places 680 stadia (about 80 miles) south of the Sacred Port, Novorossiisk, and 1,020 stadia (100 miles) north of Pityus, i.e., somewhere in the neighborhood of

Tuapse Tuapse (; , Ṫuapsă ) is a town in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, situated on the northeast shore of the Black Sea, south of Gelendzhik and north of Sochi. Population: Tuapse is a sea port and the northern center of a resort zone which extends sou ...

. Kiessling sees in the Lazoi a section of the Kerketai, who in the first century A.D. had to migrate southwards under pressure from the Zygoi. The same author regards the Kerketai as a "Georgian" tribe. The fact is that at the time of Arrian (2nd century A.D.), the Lazoi were already living to the south of Um. The order of the peoples living along the coast to the east of Trebizond was as follows: Colchi (and Sanni); Machelones; Heniochi; Zydritae; Lazai, subjects of King Malassus, who owned the suzerainty of Rome; Apsilae; Abacsi; and Sanigae near Sebastopolis.

Social and cultural status

Laz has no official status in either Turkey or Georgia, and no written standard. It is presently used only for familiar and casual interaction; for literary, business, and other purposes, Laz speakers use their country's official language ( Turkish or Georgian). Laz is unique among the Kartvelian languages in that most of its speakers live in

rather than Georgia. While the differences between the various dialects are minor, their speakers feel that their level of mutual intelligibility is low. Given that there is no common standard form of Laz, speakers of its different dialects use Turkish to communicate with each other. Between 1930 and 1938, Zan (Laz and Mingrelian) enjoyed cultural autonomy in Georgia and was used as a literary language, but an official standard form of the language was never established. Since then, all attempts to create a written tradition in Zan have failed, despite the fact that most intellectuals use it as a literary language. In Turkey, Laz has been a written language since 1984, when a script based on the

Turkish alphabet The Turkish alphabet () is a Latin-script alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which ( Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü) have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements o ...

was created. Since then, this system has been used in most of the handful of publications that have appeared in Laz. Developed specifically for the Kartvelian languages, the

Georgian alphabet The Georgian scripts are the three writing systems used to write the Georgian language: #Asomtavruli, Asomtavruli, #Nuskhuri, Nuskhuri and #Mkhedruli, Mkhedruli. Although the systems differ in appearance, their Letter (alphabet), letters share ...

is better suited to the sounds of Laz, but the fact that most of the language's speakers live in Turkey, where the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

is used, has rendered the adoption of the former impossible. Nonetheless, 1991 saw the publication of a textbook called Nana-nena ('Mother tongue'), which was aimed at all Laz speakers and used both the Latin and Georgian alphabets. The first Laz–Turkish dictionary was published in 1999. Speaking Laz was forbidden in Turkey between 1980 and 1991, because doing so was seen as a political threat to the unity of the country. During this era, some academicians lamented the existence of the Laz ethnic group. Because speaking Laz was banned in public areas, many children lost their mother tongue as a result of not communicating with their parents. Most Laz people have a heavy Turkish accent because they cannot practice their mother tongue.

Phonology

Like many

languages of the Caucasus The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Linguistic comparison allows t ...

, Laz has a rich consonantal system but only five vowels (a, e, i, o, u).

Writing system

Laz is written in Mkhedruli script and in an extension of the

. For the Laz letters written in the Latin script, the first is a letter from the writing system introduced in Turkey in 1984 that was developed by Fahri Lazoğlu and Wolfgang Feurstein and the second is the transcription system used by Caucasianists.

Grammar

The

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

s are inflected with

agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes (word parts), each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglu ...

suffixes to indicate

grammatical function In linguistics, grammatical relations (also called grammatical functions, grammatical roles, or syntactic functions) are functional relationships between constituents in a clause. The standard examples of grammatical functions from traditional g ...

(four to seven cases, depending on the dialect) and

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

(singular or plural), but not by gender. The Laz verb is inflected with suffixes according to person and number, and also for

grammatical tense In grammar, tense is a grammatical category, category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their grammatical conjugation, conjugation patterns. The main tenses found ...

, aspect, mood, and (in some dialects)

evidentiality In linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and if so, what kind. An evidential (also verificational or validational) is the particul ...

. Up to 50 verbal prefixes are used to indicate spatial orientation/direction. Person and number suffixes provided for the subject as well as for one or two objects involved in the action, e.g. ''gimpulam'' = "I hide it from you". Some distinctive features of Laz among its family are: * All nouns end with a vowel. * More extensive verb inflection, using directional prefixes. * Some lexical borrowings from Greek and

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

References

Bibliography

* Anderson, Ralph Dewitt. (1963). ''A Grammar of Laz''. Ann Arbor: UMI. (Doctoral dissertation, Austin: University of Texas at Austin; vi+127pp.) * Grove, Timothy (2012). Materials for a Comprehensive History of the Caucasus, with an Emphasis on Greco-Roman Sources
A Star in the East: Materials for a Comprehensive History of the Caucasus, with an Emphasis on Greco-Roman sources (2012)
* Kojima, Gôichi (2003) ''Lazuri grameri'' Chiviyazıları, Kadıköy, İstanbul, (notes in English and Turkish) * Nichols, Johanna (1998). The origin and dispersal of languages: Linguistic evidence. In N. G. Jablonski & L. C. Aiello (Eds.), The origin and diversification of language. San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences. * Nichols, Johanna (2004). The origin of the Chechen and Ingush: A study in Alpine linguistic and ethnic geography. Anthropological Linguistics 46(2): 129–155. * * Tuite, Kevin. (1996). Highland Georgian paganism — archaism or innovation?: Review of Zurab K’ik’nadze. 1996. Kartuli mitologia, I. ǰvari da saq’mo. (Georgian mythology, I. The cross and his people ic). Annual of the Society for the Study of Caucasia 7: 79–91.

External links

*
Lazkulturdernegi.org.tr
*
Laz Cultur – Information about Lazs, Laz Language, Culture, Music
*
Laz Cultur – Information about Lazs, Laz Language, Culture, Music
*
Laz Cultur – Information about Lazs, Laz Language, Culture, Music and Laz Diaspora

Lazuri Nena – The Language of the Laz
by Silvia Kutscher.
Laz-Turkish full dictionary in word format

Samples of Laz Language in English, Dutch and Turkish, Arzu Barské – Erdogan
on Yahoo! GeoCities
Laz history and language, Lazlar, Yilmaz Erdogan
on Yahoo! GeoCities
Laz Georgian-Latin and Latin-Georgian converter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laz Language Agglutinative languages Languages of Georgia (country) Languages of Turkey Definitely endangered languages Kartvelian languages Georgian-Zan languages