Address is an indicator of interpersonal relationships reflecting not only collocutors’ role functions with respect to their social status, gender, age, acquaintance, but also being a certain ethno-cultural marker. Hence, address is a linguistic phenomenon massively constituted of socio-cultural, historical and ethical values; these factors make studies of address systems much more topical and interesting both from the general linguistic and socio-cultural standpoints.
       The goal of the present project is a full-scale description and study of address systems in Megrelian and Laz, two unwritten Kartvelian languages, in which all traditions are transferred through an oral medium and are endangered under globalization: it has already become a part of a community’s historic-cultural memory.
        The present project becomes of particular relevance owing to the fact that the Laz language is spoken in two, linguistically and socio-culturally distinct environments (Georgia and Turkey); when exploring the sociolinguistic phenomenon of address, the aforementioned circumstance generates greater expectations of the occurrence and identification of earlier Zan substrata and novel linguistic and socio-cultural phenomena.
        Diverse inventory has been applied as forms of address in Kartvelian languages, and they can be classified into pronominal (T/V), verbal, and nominal forms; they are sub-classified based on various structural and semantic features.  Within the project, research of address systems implies not only linguistic (structural and semantic) analyses of individual forms either independently or in interactions (free and bound forms) but also studies of uses of forms of address in individual situations, establish correlations between linguistic (terms of address) and social (age, gender, education, position, acquaintance, etc.) elements, influence of taboo in address, identification of sociolinguistically universal and unique phenomena.
        In order to develop a credible database for identification and study of Megrelian and Laz terms of address, on the one hand, we will all the print and digital sources (texts, dictionaries, video and audio content) available in these languages, and, on the other, we will plan linguistic field activities in Megrelian- and Laz-speaking areas; Data will be obtained by means of surveys and of recording conversations. We will apply descriptive, typological, statistical, comparative, observation and survey methods.
      A sociolinguistic phenomenon of address in Megrelian and Laz will be studied in a systemic way for the first time and, thanks to project-related publications, their data will reach all interested parties.
      The present research provides a good foundation for future intercultural studies, as well as for psycholinguistics, being concerned with psycho-types of peoples.