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Revision as of 01:44, 10 June 2006 by Behemoth (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) Ethnic groupRegions with significant populations | |
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Turkey and Georgia | |
Languages | |
Laz | |
Religion | |
Sunni Islam | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Georgians |
The Laz are an ethnic group of Georgians who live primarily on the Black Sea coastal regions of Turkey and Georgia. They were once Christians but now almost all of them are Sunni Muslims. They speak the Laz language, a dialect of Georgian. The Laz primarily designated as fisherfolk by the Turkish public (in fact, they are mostly farmers of tea and maize). Under the Ottoman Empire, they lived in the Lazistan sanjak.
Geographical distribution
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.
Today most Laz speakers live in Northeast Turkey, in a strip of land along the shore of the Black Sea: in the Pazar (Atina), Ardeşen (Artaşen) and Fındıklı (Viče) districts of Rize, and in the Arhavi (Arkabi), Hopa (Xopa) and Borçka districts of Artvin. There are also communities in northwestern Anatolia (Karamürsel, in Akçakoca, Sakarya, Kocaeli), where many immigrants settled since the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) and now also in Istanbul and Ankara. Only a few Laz live in Georgia, chiefly in Ajaria (est. 30,000 speakers, about 2000 of them in Sarpi).
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