İskender Tzitashi (also written Chitashi or Tsitashi) was a Laz intellectual and linguist active in the Soviet Union during the early 20th century. He is credited with creating the first Laz alphabet in 1929, a historic achievement that marked the beginning of written Laz literature.

The First Laz Alphabet

Working within the Soviet Union’s early policies of promoting literacy among minority peoples, Tzitashi developed a Latin-based alphabet for the Laz language. This was part of a broader Soviet program to create writing systems for unwritten languages across the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The alphabet was used for a brief period to publish educational materials and texts in Lazuri. However, in the late 1930s, Soviet language policies shifted toward Cyrillic-based alphabets, and Tzitashi’s Latin alphabet was abandoned.

Legacy

Despite the brevity of its use, Tzitashi’s alphabet represented a watershed moment: for the first time, the Laz language was written down in a systematic way. His work demonstrated that Lazuri could function as a literary language and laid the intellectual foundation for later alphabet development efforts, including Wolfgang Feurstein’s 1984 Latin alphabet that is still in use today.