Georgian language and alphabet by Levan Urushadze

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This is a signed article by Dr. Levan Urushadze. It may be edited for spelling errors or typos, but not for substantive content except by its author. If you have created a user name and verified your identity provided you have set forth your credentials on your user page, you can add comments to the botton of this article as Wikinfo:Peer review.

Georgian is the official language of the Republic of Georgia. It is spoken by about 4 million, or seventy percent of the total population.

Georgian is a member of the Kartvelian language group of the Iberian-Caucasian language family. Some scholars have tried to link it to Basque or other languages, but none have met with any success. In any case, it is the most widely spoken of these languages, and the only one with a long-standing literary tradition.

The Georgians call themselves Kartvelebi (sing. Kartveli), their land Sakartvelo, and their language Kartuli. The language contains some formidable consonant clusters, as may be seen in words like gvprtskvni ("You peel us") and mtsvrtneli ("trainer"). Most Georgian surnames end in -dze ("son"), -shvili ("child"), -ia (Mingrelian/Megrelian surnames), -ani (surnames of Svans), -uri (surnames of Khevsurs and Mtiuls).

Contents

Alphabet

The oldest form of Georgian alphabet Asomtavruli was invented in 412 BC by the Georgian priests of the cult of Mithras. Reformator of Asomtavruli in 284 BC was King Farnavaz I.

The original alphabet is known as Asomtavruli ("capital") or Mrgvlovani ("rounded"), examples of which are still preserved in monumental inscriptions, such as those of the church of Bolnisi Sioni near Tbilisi. Recent investigations suggest that the Georgian inscriptions from Bolnisi date from the 4th and 5th centuries AD. Older, pre-Christian Georgian (Asomtavruli) inscriptions dating from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD were found in Armaztsikhe (near Mtskheta) and Nekresi (in the Kakheti region of eastern Georgia) by the noted Georgian scientist Pavle Ingorokva and the scientific expedition of Academician Levan Chilashvili [1].

The Nuskhuri ("minuscule") or Kutkhovani ("squared") script first appeared in the 9th Century. Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri, collectively known as Khutsuri (ხუცური) or church script, were used together to write religious manuscripts, with the Asomtavruli serving as capital letters.

The present alphabet, called Mkhedruli (მხედრული, "secular [or, military] writing"), which appeared in the 11th century, was used for non-religious purposes up until the 18th century, when it completely replaced Khutsuri. The modern alphabet has thirty-three letters (some of the original letters having become obsolete), without distinction between upper and lower case (though modern "capital" versions of the letters have been invented). Georgian linguists claim that it is a phonemic orthography.

Letters

Georgian makes no distinction between upper and lower cases:

აბგდევზთიკლმნოპჟრსტუფქღყშჩცძწჭხჯჰ

External links and references

  • online Georgian Grammar.
  • Omniglot pictures
  • K. Danelia, Z. Sarjveladze. "Questions of Georgian Paleography" (a monograph), Tbilisi, 1997
  • K. Bouda. "Baskisch-Kaukasische Etymologien", Heidelberg, 1949 (In German)
  • P. Ingorokva. "Georgian inscriptions of Antique".- "Bulletin of the Institute of the Language, History and Material Culture (ENIMK)", Vol. X, Tbilisi, 1941, pp. 411-427 (In Georgian, Russian summary)
  • R. Pataridze. "The Georgian Asomtavruli" (a monograph), Tbilisi, 1980 (In Georgian)

References

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