Laz
South Caucasian language in the Kartvelian family, close to Mingrelian, spoken by the Laz people on the southeastern shore of the Black Sea
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Summary
Laz is a natural language[1]. Laz draws 1,793 Wikipedia views per month (natural language category, ranking #157 of 734).[2]
Key Facts
- Country: Turkey[3], Georgia[4]
- Instance of: modern language[5]
- Subclass of: Zan[6]
- Writing system: Latin script[7], Georgian scripts[8]
- Wikimedia language code: lzz[9]
- Topic's main category: Category:Laz language[10]
- Number of speakers, writers, or signers: 250,000[11]
- Described by source: Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 7[12], Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1926–1947)[13]
- Native label: ლაზური[14], Lazuri[15]
- Short name: лазаг[16]
- Different from: Laze[17]
- UNESCO language status: 3 definitely endangered[18]
- Indigenous to: Laz people[19], Sanjak of Lazistan[20], Adjara[21], Artvin Province[22], Bolu Province[23], Kocaeli Province[24], Rize Province[25], Sakarya Province[26]
- Exact match: http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/language/LZZ[27]
- Ethnologue language status: 6b Threatened[28]
- Linguistic typology: agglutinative language[29]
Why It Matters
Laz has Wikipedia articles in 27 language editions, a strong signal of global cultural recognition.[30] Laz is known by 45 alternative names across languages and contexts.[31]