[3][4] In the population census of Dagestan Oblast of 1886 the residents of Kazikumukh Okrug were named "Laki" (Russian "Лаки").

[5] On the schematic map of the Dagestan Oblast of 1895, compiled by historian and ethnographer E. I. Kozubskiy, the residents of Kazikumukh Okrug are called "Laki".

[6] According to the Soviet and Russian scientist-philologist, linguist-Iranian scholar and etymologist V. I. Abaev, the self-name "lak" is in connection with the term "lag", as the Caucasian peoples called the "serf".

[8] Soviet and Russian onomatologist (onomast), philologist and toponymist R. A. Ageeva writes: "The use of the term 'varnish' as a self-designation of the Laks is a secondary phenomenon ...

In a number of surrounding languages, the more ancient self-name of the Laks has been preserved - gumuk, gumek, kumuk, etc.

[10] Sunni Islam encourages group solidarity; their members help each other find work and housing, arrange marriages, pay the kalim, maintain burial societies, resolve disputes, and so forth.

Meat and milk products were major components of the Lak diet, although they also grew barley, peas, wheat and some potatoes.

The practice of transhumant sheepherding required that for several months each year, males moved to the lowlands to pasture their animals.

Textiles and clothing, leather working and shoe making, and the production of meat, cheese, and butter are still the dominant industries in this region.

Traditionally, extended families held the limited amount of agricultural land, the pastures, and the herds in common and did not have a strong sense of individual ownership.

Clan members were expected to provide mutual assistance in work and in family affairs, and to assume collective responsibility in vendettas, as prescribed by adat.

Marriages were traditionally arranged by the families of the couple, with the oldest women taking the most prominent role in the decision making.

Their feudal society consisted of the khans; the bagtal (beks), who were the khan's family and the nobility; the chankri (children of marriages between beks and women of lower social orders); the uzdental (uzden), who were free peasants (numerically the largest of all classes); the rayat (serfs); and the laghart (slaves).

These free societies were military and economic arrangements that were fluid in structure and worked on a democratic and voluntary basis.

Within the family, its position is highly debated, but it is generally thought to be an isolate, which either developed separately from an early point or, alternatively, a language of whose close relatives all have gone extinct.