Linguistic Situation In The Village Peterek

Abstract

The village Peterek situates in Artvin province, particularly in Yusufeli region, in the west Black Sea region of the present day Turkey, which is a historical Tao.
The population of the village according to Yusufeli city council contains 674 people. Official name of the village is Chevrel (çevreli), meaning environment. The village is 124 kilometer distance from Artvin and 19 kilometer from Yusufeli. According to Armenian sources “Peterek” (Bed- Agarak) denotes the meaning of fortress.

Some toponyms are of Armenian origin in the village, some are Turkish and most of them are Georgian, approximately 90% of them; Main language of the village is Turkish, there is only one district where people speak Georgian; population of this district was settled from Khevai in 1938.

In other districts no one actually knows Georgian. Their main language is the black sea region dialect of Turkish. We should notice that words of Georgian origin abound in Turkish speech of Peterek population as well as in Otkhta people, which obviously represents substructural layer.