Lazs
|
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (45,000 to 1.6 million) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Turkey
|
|
 Georgia
|
2,000 |
 Russia
|
160 |
| Languages | |
| Laz, Georgian, Turkish | |
| Religion | |
| Sunni Islam, Georgian Orthodox | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Mingrelians, Svans and other groups of Georgians | |
The Laz or Lazi (Laz: ლაზი lazi; Georgian: ლაზი / ჭანი; Turkish: Laz) are a Kartvelian-speaking ethnic group native to the Black Sea coastal regions of Turkey and Georgia.
The Laz are ethnically a branch of the Georgian people, estimates of the total population of Laz people today ranges drastically, with numbers as low as 45,000 to as high as 1.6 million people, with the majority living in northeast Turkey. The Laz speak the Laz language, a member of the same Kartvelian language family as Georgian, Svan, and Mingrelian. The Laz language is classified as endangered by UNESCO, with an estimated 130,000 to 150,000 speakers in 2001.
In the 13th century BC, the Kingdom of Colchis was formed as a result of the increasing consolidation of the tribes inhabiting the region, which covered modern western Georgia and modern Turkish provinces of Trabzon and Rize. The advanced economy and favorable geographic and natural conditions of the area attracted the Milesian Greeks who colonized the Colchian westernmost coast establishing here their trading posts, one of them was Trapezus (Laz: ტამტრა/Tamtra), traditionally dated to 756 BC. Greeks noted that the hinterlands remained disunited, and they recorded the names of tribes: Moskhians,Leucosyri, Mares, Makrones, Mossynoikians, Tibareni, Tzans and Chaldians. later region was Overrun by the Cimmerians and Scythians in the 730s-720s BC. By the 6th century BC, region had become officially a part of the Achaemenid Empire, The tribes living in the southern Colchis (Tibareni, Mossynoeci, Macrones, Moschi, and Marres) were incorporated into the 19th Satrapyof Persia. after the death of Alexander the Great, Mithridates, a Persian nobleman from Asia Minor, declared himself as King of Pontus, the kingdom grew in strength, from II-I century BC Pontus conquered surrounding lands. As a result of the brilliant Roman campaigns of generals Pompey and Lucullus, the Kingdom of Pontus was completely destroyed by the Romans and all its territory including Colchis, were incorporated into Roman Empire as her provinces. The former southern provinces of Colchis was re-organized by the Romans into the Roman province of Pontus Polemoniacus. Only during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) were the warlike tribes, the Sannoi or Tzannoi, subdued, Christianized, and brought under central rule.
...
Wikipedia