Georgian ქართული Kartuli |
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Spoken in: | Georgia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Russia | |
Total speakers: | 5 million [1] | |
Language family: | South Caucasian Georgian |
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Writing system: | Georgian alphabet | |
Official status | ||
Official language in: | ![]() |
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Regulated by: | No official regulation | |
Language codes | ||
ISO 639-1: | ka | |
ISO 639-2: | geo (B) | kat (T) |
ISO 639-3: | kat | |
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. |
Georgian (ქართული ენა, kartuli ena,it means the language of Karts) is the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.
Georgian is the primary language of about 3.9 million people in Georgia itself (83 percent of the population), and of another 500,000 abroad (chiefly in Turkey, Iran, Russia, the USA and Europe). It is the literary language for all ethnographic groups of Georgian people, especially those who speak other South Caucasian languages (or Kartvelian languages): Svans, Mingrelians, and the Laz. Judaeo-Georgian, or "Kivruli", sometimes considered a separate Jewish language, is spoken by an additional 20,000 in Georgia and 65,000 elsewhere (primarily 60,000 in Israel).
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Georgian language Dialects · Alphabet |
History of Georgia |
Georgian is the most pervasive of the South Caucasian languages, a family that also includes Svan and Megrelian (chiefly spoken in Northwest Georgia) and Laz (chiefly spoken along the Black Sea coast of Turkey, from Melyat, Rize to the Georgian frontier).
Dialects of Georgian include Imeretian, Racha-Lechkhumian, Gurian, Adjaran, Imerkhevian (in Turkey), Kartlian, Kakhetian, Ingilo (in Azerbaijan), Tush, Khevsur, Mokhevian, Pshavian, Fereydan dialect in Iran in Fereydunshahr and Fereydan, Mtiuletian, Meskhetian.
Georgian is believed to have separated from Megrelian and Laz in the first millennium BC. Based on the degree of change, linguists (e.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.
Georgian has a rich literary tradition. The oldest surviving literary text in Georgian is the "Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik" (Tsamebay tsmindisa Shushanikisi, dedoplisa) by Iakob Tsurtaveli, from the 5th century AD. The Georgian national epic, "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" (Vepkhistqaosani), by Shota Rustaveli, dates from the 12th century.
Symbols on the left are those of the IPA and those on the right are of the Georgian alphabet
Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
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Nasal | m მ | n ნ | |||||
Plosive | aspirated | pʰ ფ | tʰ თ | kʰ ქ | |||
voiced | b ბ | d დ | g გ | ||||
ejective | pʼ პ | tʼ ტ | kʼ კ | qʼ ყ | |||
Affricate | plain | ts ც | tʃ ჩ | ||||
voiced | dz ძ | dʒ ჯ | |||||
ejective | tsʼ წ | tʃʼ ჭ | |||||
Fricative | voiceless | s ს | ʃ შ | x1 ხ | h ჰ | ||
voiced | v ვ | z ზ | ʒ ჟ | ɣ1 ღ | |||
Rhotic | r რ | ||||||
Lateral | l ლ |
Front | Back | |
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Close | i ი | u უ |
Mid | ɛ ე | ɔ ო |
Open | ɑ ა |
Some features of Georgian phonotactics.
Georgian has been written in a variety of scripts over its history. Currently one alphabet, mkhedruli ("military") is almost completely dominant; the others are mostly of interest to scholars reading historical documents.
Mkhedruli has 33 letters in common use; a half dozen more are now obsolete. The letters of mkhedruli correspond to the sounds of the Georgian language.
According to the traditional accounts written down by Leonti Mroveli in the 11th century, the first Georgian alphabet was created by the first King of Caucasian Iberia (also called Kartli), Pharnavaz in the 3rd century BC. However, the first examples of that alphabet, or its modified version, date from the 4th-5th centuries AD. During the centuries the alphabet was modernized. Nowadays there are three Georgian alphabets which are quite different from each other, so that knowing one of them can't help one read a text written in the others. These alphabets are called asomtavruli (Capitals), nuskhuri (Small letters) and mkhedruli. The first two are used together as capital and small letters and they form a single alphabet used in the Georgian Orthodox Church and called khutsuri (priests').
In mkhedruli, there are no separate forms for capital letters. Sometimes, however, a capital-like effect is achieved by scaling and positioning the ordinary letters so that their vertical sizes are identical and they rest on the baseline with no descenders. These capital-like letters are often used in page headings, chapter titles, monumental inscriptions, and the like.
Georgian has a rich word-derivation system. By using a root, and adding some definite prefixes and suffixes, one can derive many nouns and adjectives from the root. For example, from the root -Kart-, the following words can be derived: Kartveli (a Georgian person), Kartuli (the Georgian language) and Sakartvelo (Georgia).
Most Georgian surnames end in -dze ("son") (Western Georgia), -shvili ("child") (Eastern Georgia), -ia (Western Georgia, Samegrelo), -ani (Western Georgia, Svaneti), -uri (Eastern Georgia), etc. At least two personalities with Georgian surnames are known abroad: Eduard Shevardnadze and Joseph Stalin, whose birth name was Dzhugashvili. In the 1990s, British soccer team Manchester City had a number of Georgian players with these surname endings, such as Georgi Kinkladze, Murtazi Shelia, Kakakber Tshkadadze and Mikhail Kavelashvilli.
Georgian has a vigesimal number system, based on the counting system of 20, like Basque or Old French. In order to express a number greater than 20 and less than 100, first the number of 20s in the number is stated and the remaining number is added. For example, 93 is expressed as ოთხმოცდაცამეტი - otkh-m-ots-da-tsamet'i (lit. four-times-twenty-and-thirteen).
Georgian has a word derivation system, which allows the derivation of nouns from verb roots both with prefixes and suffixes. For example:
It is also possible to derive verbs from nouns:
Likewise, verbs can be derived from adjectives:
In Georgian many nouns and adjectives begin with two or more contiguous consonants.