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Let's Learn Laz! / Lazuri dovigurat!

Category
Caucasian Languages
Date
Let's Learn Laz! / Lazuri dovigurat!

Laz Study Group

 

The Laz language is spoken by about 200,000 people on the Black Sea coast of Turkey.

 

The School of Language, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds invites you to join its Laz Study Group, to be led by İsmail Mesut Sezgin, a native speaker of Laz. If you are interested, please contact Prof. James Dickins:

 

J.Dickins@leeds.ac.uk

 

Laz is particularly interesting for a number of reasons:

 

  1. The Kartvelian language family, comprising four languages including Laz, is an apparent isolate – unrelated to any other languages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartvelian_languages#Classification

 

  1. The syntax is unusual, with for example an ‘ergative-absolutive’ transitivity pattern: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergative–absolutive_language

 

  1. The phonology is unusual, having a ‘voiced-glottalized-aspirated’ opposition system which is reminiscent of the proto-Semitic ‘unaspirated-glottalized-aspirated’ system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laz_grammar#Phonology_and_Writing_system.

 

  1. Laz has a number of features such as ergativity which are also areal features, found in other languages of the Caucasus, Eastern Anatolia, Kurdistan and neighbouring parts of Iran – including Kabardian, Indo-European, and Semitic languages (and possibly also some Turkic languages/dialects).

 

  1. Laz has been heavily influenced by Turkish, particularly through borrowing of Turkish words. It would be interesting to see how this has influenced Laz phonology, amongst other things.

 

  1. Laz has not been heavily studied, and so it is a fruitful area for academic investigation. The Laz Study Group will provide opportunities for staff members involved in it to produce both collaborative and individual published research. It will also provide opportunities for students in Linguistics – and other departments such as Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies – to do original research (for dissertations, etc.), and will provide data which could be used in taught modules for linguistic analysis.

 

  1. Sociolinguistically, the situation of Laz mirrors the huge changes – in the direction of tolerance and multi-ethnicity – which have taken place in Turkey over the past two decades. Up to twenty years ago minority languages were suppressed. Only Greek, Ladino and Armenian were officially recognised as minority languages; Kurdish, Arabic, (neo-)Aramaic, and other minority languages such as Laz were effectively forbidden from being written down. There are now active Laz language groups, and even a Laz language newspaper: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/12/laz-people-of-turkey-awaken.html#

 

  1. A Turkish-based Latin script has been developed for Laz in Turkey, with additional letters not found in Turkish. This is an interesting example of the development of a new script from an existing one in another language. Also very interesting is the use of the Georgian script to write Mingrelian, effectively a dialect of Laz spoken in Georgia: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/laz.htm