Where Tsez is spoken
Tsez is spoken in 2 countries: Georgia and Russia.
On the map, Tsez is drawn as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007. The area was digitised by the Glottography project (doi:10.5281/zenodo.18613195), and the atlas is cited on the data sources page. Language areas are generalisations, and cities and borderlands are multilingual, so the outline does not mean that everyone inside it speaks Tsez.
How many people speak Tsez?
Wikidata gives about 12,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.
Status: Shifting. Glottolog lists it as shifting: the youngest speakers are adults, and children are growing up speaking another language.
Where Tsez sits in the language family tree
Glottolog classifies Tsez as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.
- Nakh-Daghestanian
- Daghestanian
- Avar-Andic-Tsezic
- Tsezic
- West Tsezic
- Tsez
Related languages
Other languages in the West Tsezic group:
- Khwarshi-Inkhoqwari (1,740 speakers)
- Hinuq (5 speakers)
More about Tsez
- Read about Tsez on Wikipedia
- Nakh-Daghestanian languages map
- Languages spoken in Georgia
- All languages, A to Z
Codes: ISO 639-3 ddo, Glottolog dido1241. Glottolog macroarea: Eurasia.
Questions about Tsez
Where is Tsez spoken?
Tsez is spoken in Georgia and Russia. On the map it is shown as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007.
How many people speak Tsez?
Wikidata gives about 12,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.
Which language family is Tsez in?
Glottolog places Tsez in the Nakh-Daghestanian family, in the branch Daghestanian, Avar-Andic-Tsezic, Tsezic and West Tsezic.