Talk:South Caucasian languages

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[edit] Comment

The speaker population estimates are confusing especially when compared to the ones given in Georgian language. Would someone please give the separate estimates for

• How many people use Georgian (either as a native language or as an oficial or "everyday business" language) in each country;
• How many people are native speakers of each of the four languages (Georgian, Svan, Laz, Megrelian) in each country.

My understanding from the data given is that the whole population of Georgia uses Georgian (because it is the official language and the only written language) but only about 70% (about 4 million) are native speakers. But that means that about 1.5 million people in Georgia are not native speakers of Georgian. Are they all speakers of the three dialects, or are there other languages (not South Caucasian) spoken in Georgia?
Jorge Stolfi 04:25, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Svans, Lazs, Megrels are ethnic Georgians, ethnographic groups of Georgian people. Svan, Laz and Megrelian are parts of Kartvelian (Georgian) language group of the Iberian-Caucasian language family, dialects of old Georgian language. Native language for all Georgians (all ethnographic groups of Georgian people) is a GEORGIAN LANGUAGE. Dear Jorge Stolfi! Unfortunately, you and othet "Wikipedians" not know outstanding works of famous Georgian scientists Ivane Javakhishvili, Arnold Chikobava, Pavle Ingorokva, Simon Janashia, Varlam Topuria and others. YOU ARE DILETTANT IN THIS FIELD!
Levzur, 30 Apr 2004

From apparently reliable reports that I have seen, the Laz are Muslim, are Turkish citizens, are bilingual Laz/Turkish, use the Turkish alphabet when they have to write their language, and identify their country as Turkey rather than Georgia. So in what sense are they "ethnic Georgians"?
Jorge Stolfi 01:53, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Some of them are from Georgian stock, but some are certainly not. Subsuming Svan, Laz and Mingrelian under the one language would linguistically - and politically - be like saying that Norwegian, Danish and Swedish are really all just Norwegian dialects. And yes, there are many non-South Caucasian languages spoken in Georgia; Abkhaz (100,000 native speakers), for instance, and small communities of Ossetian and many Northwest Caucasian and Northeast Caucasian languages. The fact that all of Georgia is an ethnic Georgian and a native speaker of Georgian is unfortunately promulgated by some Georgians. I noted that Levzur neglected to mention some of the great Abkhazian linguists, like Zaira Khiba and Tamara Shakryl. thefamouseccles 00:42, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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I have restored some edits by anonymous user 213.157.209.234:

• The four languages of this family are not mutually intelligible. This is clearly stated by every source I have seen, including Georgian ones. Intentionally omitting this information is misleading to say the least.
• The assertion that the Laz are "ethnnic Georgians" is probably POV. The most detailed reports that I have seen state that the overwhelming majority of the Laz speakers live in Turkey, are Muslim, consider themselves Turkish citizens and speak Turkish as a second language. The few publicationn in Laz language generally use the Turkish alphabet, not the Georgian one. Anyway, this page is about languages, not about ethnic groups (there is a big difference).
• Those same sources say that the number of Laz speakers is not known with precision because it is not counted by census data, but estimates vary from much less than 100,000 to about 500,000. Most other sources are closer to the low end.
• I cannot find any support for statement that there are 2 million Georgian speakers in Turkey.
• Mingrelian is occasionally used in English-language documents about the Megrelian language, so it is useful to list that name here, too.

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To 213.157.193.*: apparently the facts (esp. numbers of speakers) which you have repeatedly placed on this page are in disagreement with the sources originally found by the authors of this article. Please either state here your sources and/or your rationale for continually placing these facts here or cease continued altering of this page. -- Grunt 01:40, 2004 Jun 14 (UTC)

This is a waste of time since the user in question has been refusing all dialogue. I see no way to stop this war, except perhaps by getting someone in Georgia to intervene. I will see what I can do...
Jorge Stolfi 02:03, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

At this point, I feel fairly secure in offering to temp-ban this guy's proxies whenever he starts reverting these articles. That should be better than protecting them, since at least other people can get a chance to continue working, and tide us over until Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/ChrisO and Levzur reaches a conclusion. Bryan 05:23, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I had already banned his proxies, but unfortunately someone saw fit to change the period of one of the bans from one month to one day (!). Guanaco extended the ban to 3 days, which is little better, but I've extended it to 1 month to match the other bans. They expire on 11 July. As Jdforrester puts it, "General practice for anonymous 'nuisance' editors is to block them until they go away." -- ChrisO 07:59, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Levzur appears to have made his usual edits again, and I banned him for 48 hours while I try to figure out whether Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/ChrisO and Levzur has reached a conclusion yet. Anyone know what the status of arbitration is? Bryan 23:55, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] article/category name mismatch suggest renaming

It's bad that the main names: South Caucasian languages and Category:Kartvelian languages do not match, although they have just the same meaning. (In the present situation, for an article on one of the languges to look not misleading, one needs to relate the two names as synonyms.) One of them should be renamed.--Imz 20:46, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Gruzinit"

I didn't make the change because my knowledge about these languages is limited. However, I believe that there is a mistake: "gruzinit" is the name in Hebrew, not Russian. I speak both Hebrew and Russian, and "gruzinit" is the name of Georgian in Hebrew; also, the "-it" ending is characteristic of Hebrew grammar. In Russian, one would say "gruzinskiy". However, before I make any changes, I'd like a confirmation, possibly by the original author of the paragraph in question.--EngineeringCat 07:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

True. Gruzinit it's Hebrew name. In Russian it's called "еврейско-грузинский, evrejsko-gruzinskij", not just "gruzinskiy" (=Georgian). But Gruzinic is not at all the language, it's just a sort of trade jargon. --Koryakov Yuri 09:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)