The Interior Ministry has approved the application from a group of villagers in the Black Sea region to change the name of their village from its current name, Murat Village, to Komilo, its traditional name in the Laz language.
Residents from Murat Village, which boasts a population of 600 and is 3 kilometers away from the Çamlıhemşin district in Turkey's northern Rize province, collected the required number of signatures to change the name of their village and applied to their district governor.
After the application was approved by the district governor and the Provincial Administrative Board, it was transferred to the Interior Ministry for approval.
Komilo Village headman Lütfü Sezgin said the demand came about a year ago and that the village was once well-known by its Laz name.
"With the application and approval we have made the village's Laz name, Komilo, official. Komilo means goddess in the Laz language," Sezgin said.
The Laz language, believed to be derived from a South Caucasian language family, is among the endangered languages mainly spoken in Turkey's Black Sea region, which was named Lazistan until the 1920s. No official statistics are available for its speakers but it is estimated to be around 250,000 among an ethnic community describing themselves as Laz in cities across Turkey's Black Sea coast.
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