Laz language
The Laz language (Lazuri in Laz, Chanuri in Georgian) is spoken by an ethnic group of the same name on the Southeast shore of the Black Sea. It is estimated that there are between 50,000 and 500,000 native speakers of Laz in Turkey (in a strip of land extending from Trabzon to the Georgian border) and about 3,000 in Georgia (in the town of Sarpi).
History of the language
Laz is one of the four South Caucasian languages, closely related to Megrelian and somewhat less closely to Georgian. The Laz and Megrelian communities were separated by politics and religion around 500 years ago, and are no longer mutually intelligible. The split between Laz and Georgian happened possibly in the first millennium BC or earlier.
The ancient kingdom of Colchis was located in the same region the Laz speakers are found in today, and its inhabitants probably spoke an ancestral version of the language. Colchis was the setting for the famous Greek legend of Jason and the Argonauts.
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). Occasional publications in Laz are written using the corresponding alphabets. Laz speakers seem to be decreasing in number, and the language is in danger of extinction.
Language features
Familial features
Like many languages of the Caucasus, Laz has a rich consonantal system (in fact, the richest among the South Caucasian family) but only five vowels (a,e,i,o,u). The nouns are inflected with agglutinative suffixes to indicate grammatical function (4 to 7 cases, depending on the dialect) and Turkic languages.
Dialects
Laz has four major dialects:
- Hopan, spoken in Hopa;
- Vitse-Arkabian, spoken in Arhavi and Fındıklı
- Atinan, spoken in Pazar;
- Ardeshenian, spoken in Ardeşen.
The last two are often treated as a single Atinan dialect. Speakers of different Laz dialects have trouble understanding each other, and often prefer to comminucate in the official language.
See also
