The assimilation policy on languages increases day by day, but İsmail Güney Yılmaz, a writer for Uncire, a journal in the Lazuri language, wants to increase the number of Laz people speaking and writing in their own language, so that they can hand it down the next generation.
Laz people, who live in the lands extending from Pazar district of Rize in Turkey to the borders of Georgia, have been struggling for years to maintain the Lazuri language. As part of that struggle, Laz people began to publish the literature journal Uncire in 2020.
Yılmaz said the word “uncire” means “sleepless” in the Lazuri language, and noted the main difficulty they faced was the low number of people who could speak and write in the language.
Yılmaz wants to encourage people to write in the Lazuri language and improve the state of Lazuri literature.