Talk:Georgian language

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[edit] Georgian Language

I think Georgian language is quite unique in its forms. First, it is a language that has been spoken by ancient Iberians and Colchis tribes. Iberians and Colchis are in fact mysterious ancestors of the people of Georgian in ancient times. According to the Bible, Kartlos was the descendant of Noah’s son Japheth, who is supposed to be the ancestor Georgians. The name Kartuli (Georgian language in Georgian) and Sakartvelo (Georgia in Georgian) comes from the name “Kartlos”. English language has lots of different words for one thing, but in Georgian language there might be one word for many different things. This is also seen in other European languages. For example, Danish, German and other Germanic languages have lot less and simple dictionary than English does. Part of it might be that Georgians used to be mountainous people and vocabulary did not assimilate with other languages.
Soso, Tbilisi, Georgia

I am from Kerala, India. Our language is Malayalam. It was really interesting for me when I found some of the Georgian alphabets are identical while others are similar to our alphabets(mostly old version) although the pronounciation is different. Thanks to Wikipedia.

Justine Kombarakkaran, NM, USA

[edit] Miscellaneous discussion

I notice that Theresa Knott removed a couple of links that were added by an anonymous user. That may have been the right thing to do, but could we have some sort of explanation for why it was done? --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 16:09, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To the user who corrected my incorrect encoding of Khutsuri and Mkhedruli, I wonder if you could add the Georgian script for Saint Mesrop Mashtots and King Farnavaz. Thanks. Hippietrail 14:47, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It is not unexpected that somebody removed St Mesrop Mashtots as believed inventor of the Georgian script. It may be controversial and it may be an Armenian-centric view. You may even have something to quote on it's being provably untrue. All the article states is that the invention is usually attributed to him and this is a fact:

Google search for "mashtots|mesrob|mesrop creation|creator|created|inventor|invented|invention georgian":

568

Google search for "parnavaz|farnavaz creation|creator|created|inventor|invented|invention georgian":

93

So that's roughly 85.93% mentions to Mesrop vs. 14.07% to Farnavaz.

Please clarify the article and debunk any myths but cutting chunks out isn't the Wikipedia way. Hippietrail 06:58, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I moved this page back. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization). --mav 03:00, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Dear mav, I am Georgian historian. The Georgian (Kartvelian) language is a Iberian-Caucasian language (in Georgia is a well-known scientific school in the field of "IBERIAN-CAUCASIAN LINGUISTICS"). Georgian is spoken about 3 million abroad (Turkey, Russia, Iran, etc.). I think that for this article will be beter a title "Georgian alphabet" (or "Georgian language and alphabet"). Thank you in advance. --Dr. Levan Z. Urushadze 31 Jan 2004
I wouldn't object to the title Georgian language and alphabet but why does "and alphabet" need to be in the title? --mav 03:35, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
It doesn't. We could certainly have separate Georgian language and Georgian alphabet articles though. Morwen 11:20, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)

The speaker population estimates are confusing especially when compared to the ones given in South Caucasian languages. 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 one) 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)

71% (more than 4 million) of the population of Georgia uses Georgian and are native speakers (ethnographic groups of Georgian people: Imeretians, Megrels, Guruls, Svans, Lazs (Chans), Ajarians, Rachvels, Lechkhumians, Kakhetians, Kartlis, Mokhevians, Khevsurs, Tushs).

[edit] Gender

I know that Georgian doesn't use masculine and feminine genders. However, according to grammatical gender there are many other types of "noun classes" that are also "genders" in linguistics. I don't know if Georgian has any of these other distinctions, so I was hesitant to simply say that "Georgian nouns have no gender." If anyone can clarify or expand, that'd be appreciated. Isomorphic 18:22, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Good question. AFAIK, Georgian has nothing at all resembling grammatical gender or noun classes -- it's rather like Turkish or Hungarian in that regard. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 13:40, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Writing direction

Is this alphabet written left-to-right or right-to-left?

Left to right. I'll look at the page and see if that has to be made clearer. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 16:11, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What's the pronunciation of these consonant clusters? Surely there must be some Schwas involved?

Not to my knowledge, but I have only a passing acquaintance with the language. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 21:25, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I don't know the language at all, but perhaps r, v and m can play vowels and form syllables? This is a common phenomenon elsewhere (Serbocroatian smrt = death, Hrvatska = Croatia; Czech Vltava = the river that flows through Prague; French théâtre = theatre/-er; German geben, denken, spielen = give, think, play actually end in -bm, -kng, -ln with nobody pronouncing the e).
David Marjanović david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at 22:07 CET-summertime 2005/8/7
Nope. Only vowels can form syllable nuclei in Georgian - which makes it that much more frightening. :) thefamouseccles 02:44, 31 Jan 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction?

Georgian is believed to have separated from Megrelian and Laz in the third millennium BC. Based on the degree of change, linguists (e.g. G.Klimov, T.Gamkrelidze, G.Machavariani) conjecture that the earliest split occurred in the second millennium BC or earlier, separating Svan from the other languages. Megrelian and Laz separated from Georgian roughly a thousand years later.

"Believed" by whom?

The linguists whose names are cited, I'd guess. Anyway, where do you see a "contradiction" here? --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 14:54, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Ouch. On rereading, I see the contradiction. This really needs cleanup. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 13:16, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Phantom vowel

"In English, the closest sound to this is in the word rhythm, which can be heard in the pronunciation of the letters -th- and -m, in the pronunciation of e in the word butter, and in the pronuncation of train between the letters t and r."

Um, in my dialect, there is no vowel between these consonants. I pronounce them [rIDm=], [bV4r\=], and [t_SrEjn]. What's this "phantom" vowel supposed to be, exactly? -- Dysfunktion 00:38, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you about "train", but in my dialect, and in standard American pronunciation in general, "rhythm" and "butter" do indeed have vowels. That's why they're two syllables -- "rhyth-?m" and "but-ter"; no syllable is possible without a vowel. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 05:23, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Well, for me anyway, m and r are the vowels --Dysfunktion 19:22, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I think most phoneticians reckon that there's a very short schwa before English "syllabic" consonants. If the consonant is /r/, it sort of fuses with the schwa in a phenomenon called rhotacization. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 19:51, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This phantom vowel business is patently false. First of all, it is not physically impossible to pronounce two contiguous consonants. Second, if you have any doubts that Georgians can speak several contiguous consonants, listen to a word with a so-called "harmonic cluster", where a cluster of consonants has only a single release. If there were interceding vowels, there would be multiple releases. As for the really long clusters, despite what some books say, I think there must be something syllabic in there (although the one syllable per vowel rule might be useful for determining the position of the stress), but I don't think it's a schwa. I'm in Georgia at the moment, so I will listen for it, but I think it will be difficult to pin down as the really long clusters seem to be rare among commonly used words. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 12:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree, there is no "phantom vowel" between any consonants in Georgian. Entire cluster is pronounced at once. Also no consonant (r, m, etc) function as a vowel. Giorgi from Georgia

I think someone who actually speaks Georgian, or at least someone with training in phonetics and access to some Georgian recordings, needs to take a look at the section on consonant clusters and particularly the account of the "epithentic vowel" (previously called a "phantom vowel" in the article), which I am pretty sure doesn't exist. Not only does this section claim that there is an epithentic vowel, but gives a long description of rules used to determine where the epithentic vowel is pronounced. Even if there really is an epithentic vowel in some consonant clusters, I am certain that the rules here are patent nonsense. For example, in harmonic clusters, there is certainly no vowel, yet the rules here imply that there would be. The same could be said of consonant clusters that appear in other languages, such as English, without epithentic vowels (e.g. /skr/). By the way, [1] has a sound sample, if anyone wants to listen and give their opinion. It sounds to me like the consonant clusters are pronounced as they are written. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 22:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Gamardzhobat Folks (hello). I've been following this discussion for a while with interest and amusement. If you are so-inclined I suggest that you have a listen to some of the various sound bytes available on the "Armazi" website - Armazi is a rather extraordinary research tool available online for the study of Georgian language / culture. You will find numerous examples of this "epithentic vowel" in the sound bytes - spoken by native Georgians, but whether you choose to believe that it exists or not is another matter. As someone who has studied Georgian languages (somewhat), and Georgian music (alot), I can assure you that this phenomenon exists, but for every Georgian linguist who will agree with you about it you'll find another who will argue against it.

I offer here a test scenario: find a (native) Georgian speaker, and ask them to say the following (for example): "k’argad vmgheri da vcek’vav" (I sing and dance well). (note: the "c" here would be pronounced like "ts" in English, as in "hats".

I believe you will find that (almost) without exception, Georgian speakers would pronounce this to sound like there is a so-called "epithentic vowel" occuring between "v" and "m" in "vmgheri" , and between "v" and "c" in "vcek'vav".

Marnen - you live around the corner from an exceptional speaker (and singer) of Georgian - the folk singer Carl Linich. I am sure he would be happy to give you a demonstration of this phenomenon. - John, 2006/May/11

Can anyone recommend a good Georgian reference in English that would shed some light on the pronunciation of consonant clusters? Aronson's Georgian: A Reading Grammar is very clear on "one syllable per vowel", but I also understand that Aronson is by many considered weak (or at times inaccurate) on pronunciation.
In any case, until there is consensus, I think we should pull the paragraphs that give details on where the epithentic vowel is pronounced. The shear detail of this section gives the impression that this is much more agreed upon than it really is (and as I have said before, I think the details are wrong anyway).
One final question, does vmgheri have a vowel between the v and the m, or is the m syllabic? I think this is something we often get confused as English speakers, since many dictionaries (or at least American dictionaries) refuse to put syllabic nasals in their pronunciations. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 22:54, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm native georgianspeaking and I can't agree with "Phantom vowel", when there are several consonants we pronounce them together with no "phantom vowel" but in some case we do a little pause between consonants like in ცეცხლმფრქვევი which is pronounced as ცეცხლ-მფრქვევი. I tried to pronounce georgian words with contagiuos consonants - it is impossible to hear any phantom vowel in natural speak, but when I try to pronounce the same words slowly, like we do when we teach to foreigners georgian pronounciation there are some kinds of prononounciatial stuff between consonants, but even they are not phantom vowel but pauses which servs to well distinguish these consonants.
About "k’argad vmgheri da vcek’vav" - we pronounce it in natural speak as "k'argat/k'arkat fmgheri da fcek'vav" but in a slow pronounciation we say "k'argad v-mgheri da v-cek'vav". წკაპო
Where did this "phantom vowel" business even come from? Is there any published source that supports the existence of such a thing? I would suggest that if there is no such source forthcoming (NB. people's untrained impressions do not count), we should remove this section. I'm a graduate student in phonetics studying with a native Georgian speaker and I have not noticed any epenthetic vowels in these sorts of common initial clusters. More importantly, however, no published source I have seen posits such a thing: neither the grammars (e.g. Aronson 1990, Hewitt 1995) nor phonetics/phonology specific articles, of which there are many in prestigious journals (e.g. Chitoran 1998 in _Phonology_ [2],the forthcoming _Illustration of the IPA_ article from the Berkeley Phonology Lab by Shosted & Chikovani [3], etc.).
In fact, these phoneticians' articles make it very clear that the complex clusters are exactly that: strings of consonants with no interceding vowels (except, perhaps, in *really* complex clusters, but surely not in the run-of-the-mill 2-3 consonant ones). Shosted & Chikovani (2006) transcribe a Georgian passage in narrow IPA and do not mention or show any epenthetic vowels.
Finally, I would also like to stress that we are talking about the Georgian language here as it is normally written and spoken, not as it is recited in music. There might be pronunciation differences in music (e.g., the way the French pronounce final schwas when they sing that they don't normal pronounce in speech; I have no idea). Even so, I know that in Georgian poetry, syllables are counted, and it is always one vowel per syllable (e.g. eight vowels per line)... epenthetic vowels never factor into it, which we would expect if they existed.
The "Ghost Vowels" section should be axed. Lesser 04:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Words that begin with multiple consonants

Whether an epenthetic vowel ever appears within Kartuli consonant clusters is disputed by phoneticians. Georgians contend that the pronunciation rules are simple: one vowel per syllable. Some phoneticians contend that an epenthetic vowel does occur under certain circumstances; Aronson argues, "Harmonic clusters will have only one release, while non harmonic clusters will have more than one release," e.g., ბგერა. A possible generalization of this notion (and again, this is controversial) is that an epenthetic vowel does appear between contiguous voiced consonants, albeit one that is extraordinarily slight--nearly imperceptible.

But there can be no dispute in the following examples:

When a consonant follows one of the double-sound consonants (ც, ძ, წ), the epenthetic -ı- is
heard between the first and the second consonant, not in between the two sounds of the first 
consonant. For example, in the pronunciation of წქ (ts'k), the -ı- is between the s and the k; not 
in between the t and the s. Therefore, it is pronounced like, "tsık."  When another consonant 
precedes one of these, again the epenthetic vowel is heard not in between the two sounds of the 
consonant, but right after the first consonant. In the example of ვწერ (vts'er), "I write," the 
phantom vowel emerges between the letters ვ and წ.

I can say without a shadow of doubt that this is incorrect. First of all, I can't even think of a word containing the sequence წქ; Kartuli avoids placing aspirated and ejective consonants next to each other. The only time I know of that this happens is in certain loan words (e.g., დოქტორი = doctor). And in these cases, the consensus among the University of Chicago phonetician crowd is that it is not pronounced as written and that there is assimilation (e.g., დოქტორი would be pronounced დოქთორი). But this is of course besides the point.

The principal function of the letter ვ within consonant clusters is to "round" the sound of the other consonants (i.e., all consonants within the cluster will be pronounced with rounded lips). To lend it so much weight as to give it its own syllable would sound ridiculous to a native speaker.

The argument that the epithentic vowel appears "When a consonant follows one of the double-sound consonants" is unsupportable. The examples given demonstrate how absurd this hypothesis is. წყალი, for example, begins with two ejective consonants. By definition, an ejective may have no release of air whatsoever--the glottal tract is closed. I challenge anyone to produce a vowel, epenthetic or not, while closing their glottal tract.

If someone wants to insert an educated treatment of the debate over a possible epenthetic vowel into this article, I have no serious objections. But much of the information in this section is false and I am going to remove it--if there are objections, please raise them here. Treemother199 03:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

A "release" is not a "vowel." tkven has a released t, I believe, but the slight, non-syllabic aspiration following "t" is not a vowel. Vowels do things like head syllables. Anyway, it's nice to see some knowledgeable discussion of the matter. Lesser 09:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mother and father

I don't know Georgian, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Georgian words for mother and father are "reversed" from the pattern observed in most Indo-European and many non-Indo-European languages. As I remember, father is mama and mother is dada or tata or papa (I can't remember which). Anyway, could someone who knows Georgian please add the correct information to the article Mama and papa? Thanks! --Angr/comhrá 06:51, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Done. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 19:48, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
In Georgian father is mama and mother is deda. Levan Z. Urushadze, 18 January 2006
Moreover: the word papa (which in many languages means father) in Georgian means grandfather. Sincerely, David Managadze.

[edit] English zelkova = Russian дзельква = Georgian ძელქვა ?

I've been researching the English word zelkova which is said to derive from a Caucasian language. Dictionaries are very hard to find so could anybody here verfiy that I've tracked down the right word please? — Hippietrail 13:46, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes. you have tracked down the right word. But, I am not sure whether it is Russian or Georgian origin. I also looked it up in merriam-webster online dictionary (is that where you looked it up?) and it also gives the both Russian and Georgian origin, but does not tell which.

The OED gives the following brief etymology:
[mod.L. (E. Spach 1841, in Ann. des Sci. Nat.: Bot. 2nd Ser. XV. 352), f. zelkoua, tselkwa, cited by Spach as local names for Z. carpinifolia in the Caucasus: cf. mod.Russ. dzel´kova grabolistnaya.]
"f." means "from". It doesn't give the language, but it looks like the English and Russian both derive from the Caucasian source. --kwamikagami 04:09, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC) [that's weird, I'm logged in but can't sign my name.]

Hi! Dzelkva is a tree. Dzeli - beam and kva-stone. It is indigenous plant growing in Georgia. As its timber is rockhard we call it dzelkva. SO it is not difficult where from this word is coming. Rezo Best regards

I concur. Dzelqva is a combination of two words: Dzeli - pole, pillar; qva - stone, rock. I highly doubt its Russian origin. None of these words are meaningful in Russian.

[edit] Inconsistent romanization

We seem to have at least two inconsistent romanization schemes in this article; I'd like to settle on one. In the table that lists the vowels and consonants, we use IPA, which I personally prefer, whereas in some of the following discussions we use symbols like ç which are not IPA and which we never define.

ACW 19:35, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

ç is, in fact, an IPA symbol (voiceless palatal fricative as in German ich), but I don't know if that's how it's being used here. --Angr/comhrá 23:29, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
That's almost true. The voiceless palatal fricative is written in IPA with a "curly-tailed c", not a c with cedille. I wish I knew the Unicode for the former, so I could insert it here. Anyway, I've certainly seen the latter used for the former, and that's the sound I thought of when I saw the romanization. But alas, that segment is not used in Georgian. The writer probably meant ʧ. I wish somebody with better IPA-typing skills than I have would go through and make this consistent. ACW 02:22, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect Use of IPA

/x/ & /ɣ/ are VELAR, not uvular. I would edit the article, but I don't know if Georgian has uvular or velar fricatives- so I'm not sure which way to edit it. BryanAJParry

They range from velar to uvular depending upon context; some people use more uvulars, some more velars. Most reference grammars of Georgian call these either "velar-uvular" or "postvelar". One could put them in the velar class for the sake of regularity, I suppose, but to do that is to oversimplify the phonetic reality. thefamouseccles 02:54, 26 Aug 2005 (UTC)
"Georgian, A Reading Grammar" by Howard I Aronson says they are both postvelar, but uses the symbol ɣ for the voiced fricative. I am currently in Georgia, so I will try to listen more carefully, but from what I have heard, it is [ɣ] at least in certain contexts. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 11:43, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unicode adds Nuskhuri

Unicode, up till version 4.1.0, mapped Mkhedruli as an optional lowercase for the uppercase Asomtavruli. Version 4.1.0 encodes the lowercase Nuskhuri (from which Mkhedruli is derived), and maps Nuskhuri as the lowercase for Asomtavruli, clearing Mkhedruli for exclusively modern use. You can see it on the PDF, and it would be a good idea to work from that PDF to add another table for this article, a table for Nuskhuri. The reason I'm not adding this table myself is that I don't know which characters to mark as obsolete (the lavender cells in the existing two tables). --Shlomital 19:09, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Velar or palatal?

The phonology section of this article makes reference to velar fricatives, and then says that this is the sound in German Bach or Scottish Loch. But these sounds are voiceless palatal fricatives. So which is it? Did the original author mean the Georgian sound is palatal, or are the examples meant to be approximations? In the latter case, we should put in a note to that effect. 216.39.182.234 03:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

These words are both textbook examples of velar fricatives. The <ch> example from German commonly appears in reference to palatal fricatives since it is pronounced as a palatal fricative when it does not follow a back vowel, but it does in "Bach," making this an example of a velar fricative (/bax/). As for the Scottish version, I have no experience with the language itself, but its <ch> is constantly cited as identical to the German in "Bach."--Coyne025 02:30, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge request

I am proposing that Georgian grammar be merged into this article. Most "XXX language" articles have the grammar section in the main article, even if the grammar section is very long (see Sanskrit language for an example). I would suggest that that's a good model to follow. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) (desk) 18:16, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe it's the Sanskrit article that should be changed! Normal Wikipedia practice is to avoid very long articles by splitting sections out as sub-articles and placing a summary and link in the main article.
Adding a grammar summary to this article (perhaps three to five paragraphs) would enhance it. Readers who only need the basic information on grammar would see it right there, and those needing more detail would click through to find it. That seems the best way forward to me. Chris Jefferies 11:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Chris and Felix. Don't merge. The Sanskrit article is unnecessarily too long. Both Georgian language and Georgian grammar articles are long enough as they are, and they serve their separate purposes well. --jonsafari 23:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with Marnen/agree with Chris. The Georgian grammar article is waaaay too long to fit here without going dizzy. A brief couple-of-paragraphs summary should be added here, and the same with the alphabet. Sanskrit needs to be changed, just as Hungarian language/Hungarian grammar recently has.—Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 13:14, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Genetic classification: Caucasian languages is not a genetic family

It would be more correct to remove Caucasian languages from the classification field since it is not a genetic class.--Imz 20:12, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed

[edit] Georgian writing system: phonemic orthography or phonetic orthography?

The article says it is phonetic orthography, whereas the phonemic orthography article says it is phonemic orthography (which sounds more plausible).

Georgian writing system is phonetic, meaning that it is read exactly as it is written.

This issue should be resolved by someone with enough knowledge.--Imz 06:48, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

No native orthography of a language is "phonetic" in the sense phonetic is used in linguistics (something like "representing distinctions of sound made including ones that have no bearing on native speaker's interpretation of that sound"). However, they are "phonetic" in a sense that is common amongst lay-people (something like phonemic in the linguistic sense, or perhaps a union of phonemic and phonetic). Of course, an orthography might have phonetic aspects to it (frequently depending on how you descriminate between phonemes and allophones). In the interest of clarity, and because phonetic orthography goes nowhere, converting "phonetic" to "phonemic" is probably a good idea. —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 10:26, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I've rewritten the section. Disputants, please look again and see if it now meets your objections. ACW 21:34, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Font

It would be helpful if a font containing the glyphs of the Georgian alphabet could be linked to (from both the Georgian alphabet and Georgian language pages). I don't know of any OSs that include one by default. Njál 00:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

My XP seems to; I certainly didn't specially install it.--137.205.76.214 09:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clarity of Phonetic descriptions

Is the Georgian /v/ truly bilabial, or is it the labiodental sound to which this symbol is commonly assigned? Maybe this column should rather be called "Labial," since a new column for just the fricative might be odd. Also, perhaps two columns could be used for Dental to divide it into Dental and Alveolar, since at least the fricatives and affricates must be alveolar, and as result I am unsure if /t,d,n,l/ are all dental as well.--Coyne025 02:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The Georgian /v/ is a complicated character. Personally, I contend that it contains a persistent combination of a relatively weak labiodental sound and a bilabial--although there is a labiodental fricative sound present, its dominant characteristic is the sound caused by the rounding of the lips. Most phoneticians who study Georgian, however, contend that it is sometimes pronounced as a labiodental and sometimes as a bilabial. --Treemother199 03:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

What is georgian r pronounced like? Is it a trill or an approximant?

A trill or a tap, depending on context and level of formality ... I think. A native speaker's response would be welcome. ACW 01:14, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
It absolutely depends on the context. In everyday speech it is most often a tap, whereas a tamada at a supra would deliver the toasts with a rolled r (and the further along the toasts go, the more trilled it can become...). 128.135.96.205 02:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabets

Someone needs to explain what the different alphabets are, what they mean, etc. Am I correct in saying Georgian has five different equivalent alphabets? If no, improve the article! 203.218.86.162 12:22, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Good point; I'll inspect the article and resolve any unclarity I find. I hope you come back to check soon. (I'll do this sometime this weekend.) ACW 00:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
OK, I think I clarified it somewhat. Please let us know if it's understandable now. ACW 04:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Georgian in Wikipedia

A guideline on whether or not to italicize Georgian (and all scripts other than Latin) is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Italics in Cyrillic and Greek characters. - - Evv 16:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Georgian Language

213.131.54.62 10:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)Just a correction from a Georgian linguist: Megrelian is not a language its a dialect of Georgian language.

No, Mingrelian is commonly regarded as a language among most linguists and caucasologists in the world. It's however a typical view of local scientists (not just in Georgia) to tread minor languages as dialects, where they actually aren't. — N-true 03:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] They are postvelar not velar nor uvular

The academic sources quoted here in discussion list the fricatives as postvelar, not velar nor uvular. If you no not have academic sources to back your claims, please do not make edits as this is original research. azalea_pomp

Azalea pomp is right about "ხ" and "ღ" being post-velar. For confirmation see Aronson, 16. Granted, Aronson is generally considered weak on phonetics (and justly so in my opinion), but here he is right. Professional Georgian language teachers correct Russian speakers (such as myself) when they pronounce ხ and ღ in the velar position, telling them to pronounce it further back in the throat. To classify these fricatives as velar or uvular is wrong; they are pronounced between these two positions. Unfortunately, this means that the current IPE symbols are incorrect, as per the discussion under point 10. But since IPA doesn't include specifically post-velar consonants, I think that it's fair to use the velar IPE symbols--at least that is what I have seen in academic writing. As for the comment under point 10 that states that there is actually more diversity in these consonants' pronunciation: that is true, but such pronunciations are not standard Georgian. On a side note, please everyone be more respectful when deciding to revert--at the very least explain why a revert is necessary. --Treemother199 01:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Although there are not symbols specifically for the postvelar, the symbol for retracted works just fine. The column is linked to that article. For some languages of the Northwest of the United States and Southwest of Canada, the underline is used for the postvelar as the article on retraction states. azalea_pomp
While I wasn't the one who made the original revert, I quote from George Hewitt's 1995 Georgian: a structural reference grammar (John Benjamins: Amsterdam): "The two back-fricatives have both a fronted dorso-velar and a backed dorso-uvular articulation depending on the phonetic environment in which they occur" (Hewitt 1995:21-22). In Marika Butskhrikidze's book The Consonant Phonotactics of Georgian, she (a native Georgian speaker, no less) also quite happily gives the fricatives as "velar" (2002:87). Winfried Boeder, in his article in Lingua (number 115 (2005), volume 1-2, pp. 5-89) also classifies the phonemes as "velar" without adding any further comment. In fact, Aronson is the only source I've come across to consistently refer to the phonemes only as "postvelar", and I think simply using Aronson's classification (which seems to be well and truly in the minority) without adding some notes on the obvious uncertainty in the academic literature is a gross oversimplification. Thefamouseccles 00:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Point well taken. I think Hewitt's classification, as more of a range from velar to uvular is most accurate, while classifications as purely velar seem too casual. The Butskhrikidze piece is really interesting reading, by the way, available in full here. --Treemother199 19:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. I see no problem with using either the velar /ɣ x/ or the uvular /ʁ χ/ symbols to symbolise the phonemes, especially since transcriptions are intended to be phonemic, not phonetic. It'd be like arguing that /θ/ is inaccurate in English because it symbolises the dental, not the interdental (as found in many forms of English) fricative. So long as a full explanation of the phonetic reality is given, either is reasonable, I think. And as for the Butskhrikidze paper (I also enjoyed it), I actually already have the digital version you refer to. *blush* Thefamouseccles 12:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] LINGUISTIC CLASSIFICATION GEORGIAN / KARTVELIAN LANGUAGE

It MUST be said on this page that Georgian=Kartvelian=South Caucasian Linguistic Family forms it's own Super Family that is on higher level than for example Indo-European Family. There many tree charts that can be posted here, take this one for example : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nostratic_tree.PNG Thanks, ````

No thanks. The Nostratic theory is just a vague theory and is not proven. It's in fact rejected by most linguists. Relationship with other language families has not been attested for the South Caucasian language family. And I think the theory is not worth mentioning here, because then you could claim relationship to "Nostratic" for almost every language in the world (and in Wikipedia). — N-true 06:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Number of speakers

This article states that there are 4.1 million speakers, but at the same time there are 6 millions Georgians [4]. Does this mean that a lot of Georgians don't speak Georgian? DVoit 14:20, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


Njnikusha 02:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)Ok. i have same question. I wrote an essey on this ex-soviet country an i know there is 6-7 million Georgians and how come 4.1 million speaks the language? it makes no sence!!!!! 90% speaks the georgian language in country itself, so maybe 4.1 stands for that? please take a note that a lot of people depend on this web-site, make an appropriate changes so people can get a correct info


thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Njnikusha (talk • contribs) 02:31, August 23, 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Phonotactics

Is it really even worth the space on the page to just have a single sentence that states nothing more than 'The language contains some formidable consonant clusters...' with two sample words? It doesn't even say if they're onsets or codas let alone if there's a difference in the complexity of onsets and codas (based on other parts of the article I assume it's mainly only onsets that are allowed to be complex, but just how complex is not clear) and which phonemes can be where. Can we at least get someone to indicate where the syllable breaks are? Just looking at the words gvprtskvni and mtsvrtneli and the rest of the article it's by no means obvious whether any of the fricatives, nasals or r's are syllabic, and thus I have no idea even how many syllables exist let alone where the syllable breaks might be. Though for gvprtskvni I would guess, gv.prts.kv.ni and for mtsvrtneli I'd bet on something like, mts.vrt.ne.li. If those syllabifications are anywhere near correct then it's inaccurate to call those consonant strings consonant clusters. Paperflight 05:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

They're not accurate. The syllabifications are gvprtskvni and mtsvrtne.li (although the 'n' in the former often sounds a bit syllabic to me). --Twid 21:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Those entire things are onsets? So in a song or poem gvprtskvni would take only one beat just the same as a word like ni (I have no idea if this is a real word, it's just an example)? That should definitely be covered in some detail in this section of the article. For one thing I don't believe it without at least a citation to a thorough treatment, especially since the sonority is highly periodic. Do they at least carry multiple mora? Paperflight 03:44, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Are we not concerned with the validity of our statements here? Can nobody cite anything that supports the claim that these are solely onsets? If not I encourage you to delete the claim from the article as, 'Encyclopedic content must be verifiable' which, under Wikipedia's definition, this section is not as it has been challenged and no supporting evidence provided. Paperflight 07:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Language Family

Just wandering: isn't Georgian a Semitic Language? The Alphabet looks somewhat similar to Hebrew and Arabic.

No, it's not related to Semitic, Georgian is South Caucasian. The similarity in the alphabets is probably a coincidence, as – as far as I know – the Georgian alphabet did not develop on its own (as the Hebrew and Arabic alphabet did) but was developped by someone, see Georgian alphabet for more information. In fact, I don't see any similarity between the Georgian and the Hebrew/Arabic alphabets at all. — N-true 11:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

A similar writing system doesn't make a language similar to another language that uses a similar writing system. For example, many non-Slavic languages use Cyrillic; or Urdu and Farsi are Indo-European but use a modified Arabic script. --129.97.58.55 16:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Georgian in any browser

Could someone maybe give a hint how to see Georgian text in any browser (IE, Firefox...) in WIN and/or MAC (till 10.3.9) computers, or give a hint which wikipedia page could write anything about this isue??? Aidas-LT (talk) 10:29, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Case System

Could someone clarify the section headed "Inflection"? So far as I am aware, languages fall into two categories: either nominative-accusative or ergative-absolutive. There can certainly be more cases in a language than two, but I don't think those basic pairs ever mix, as this section implies that they do. I would also hazard a guess that the "interesting fact" about Georgian mentioned in the Inflection paragraph (that the cases in some sentences appear reversed) may also follow from the classification - particularly if the language is ergative-absolutive. Clukyanenko (talk) 01:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)