Lazca gramer / Lazuri grameri / Laz Grammar

Introduction

The Laz is one of the thousands of languages which are insufficiently described and are in danger of disappearing in one or two generations if nothing is done to preserve them.

It is spoken mainly in small parts of Turkey and Georgia, and forms with the Mingrelian, the Georgian (or Kartvelian) and the Svan the Southwest Caucasian languages.

The Laz speaking community lives in the most part of Turkey. They form a compact language area on the Black Sea coast in two counties (il) of Rize and Artvin; districts (ilçe) of Pazar, Çamlıhemşin, Ardeşen and Fındıklı in Rize; districts of Arhavi, Hopa and Borçka in Artvin. There are also great numbers of ««language islands»» in the Northwest regions of Turkey (Yalova, Karamürsel, Gölcük, İzmit, Sapanca, Düzce, Akçakoca etc.) since the exodus of Laz people after the war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia (1877-1878) from Batumi, Georgia where some Laz villages remain.

Nowadays a great number of Laz are settled in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities in Turkey. And it is not rare to meet Laz immigrants in west European countries like Germany and France.

This study has been prepared by two authors: Goichi Kojima –a linguist from Japan- and Ismail Avcı Bucaklişi who is a native speaker of Laz language born in a village near Pazar town. He is also one of the authors of the Laz-Turkish Dictionary which was published in 1999.

Bucaklişi compiled words and sentences from the Laz dialects of Pazar, Sapanca and the village of Tolikçeti in Ardeşen while Kojima continues fieldwork mainly in the districts of Pazar, Çamlıhemşin, Ardeşen (except Tolikçeti village where he has not been), Fındıklı, Arhavi, Hopa and Borçka since 1986.

The plan of the study has been conceived by Kojima.

Most of the chapters have been written, initially in Turkish, jointly by the two authors. Those concerning the phonetics, phonemics (47.) and the classification of verbs (11.) have been prepared by the Japanese linguist.