| Mingrelian | |
|---|---|
| მარგალური ნინა margaluri nina | |
| Spoken in | Georgia |
| Region | Samegrelo, Abkhazia |
| Native speakers | 500,000 (1989) |
| Language family | |
| Writing system | Georgian |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xmf |
Mingrelian, or Megrelian (მარგალური ნინა margaluri nina; ), is a Kartvelian language spoken in Western Georgia (regions of Samegrelo and Abkhazia), primarily by Georgians of Mingrelian origin. The language was also called Iverian (Georgian iveriuli ena) in the early 20th century. Because for more than a thousand years Mingrelian holds only a regional status within Georgia, the number of its speakers has been decreasing in favor of the national language.
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No reliable figures exist for the number of Mingrelian native speakers, but it is estimated to be between 500,000 and 800,000. Most speakers live in the Samegrelo (Mingrelia) region of Georgia, that comprises the Odishi Hills and the Kolkheti Lowlands, from the Black Sea coast to the Svan Mountains and the Tskhenistskali River. Smaller enclaves existed in the autonomous Georgian republic of Abkhazia, but the ongoing civil unrest there has caused many Mingrelian speakers to emigrate, mostly to Georgia. Their geographical distribution is relatively compact, which has helped to promote the transmission of the language between generations.
Mingrelian is generally written with the Georgian alphabet, but has no written standard or official status. Almost all speakers are bilingual; they use Mingrelian mainly for familiar and informal conversation, and Georgian (or, for expatriate speakers, the local official language) for other purposes.
In the summer of 1999, books of the Georgian poet Murman Lebanidze were burned in the Mingrelian capital, Zugdidi, after he made disparaging remarks about the Mingrelian language. It is, however, common to hear self-deprecating remarks from Mingrelians about the uselessness of their language.[1]
Mingrelian is one of the Kartvelian languages. It is closely related to Laz, from which it has differentiated mostly in the last 500 years, after the northern (Mingrelian) and southern (Laz) communities were separated by Turkic invasions. It is somewhat less closely related to Georgian (the two branches having separated in the first millennium BC or earlier) and even more distantly related to Svan (which is believed to have branched off in the 2nd millennium BC or earlier).[2] Mingrelian is not mutually intelligible with any of those other languages, although it is said that its speakers can recognize many Laz words.
Some linguists refer to Mingrelian and Laz as dialects of a single Zan language or Colchian.[3] Zan had already split into Mingrelian and Laz variants by early modern times, however, and it is not customary to speak of a unified Zan language today.
The oldest surviving texts in Mingrelian date from the 19th century, and are mainly ethnographical literature. The earliest linguistic studies of Mingrelian include a phonetic analysis by Aleksandre Tsagareli (1880), and grammars by Ioseb Kipshidze (1914) and Shalva Beridze (1920). From 1930 to 1938 several newspapers were published in Mingrelian, such as Kazaxishi Gazeti, Komuna, Samargalosh Chai, Narazenish Chai, and Samargalosh Tutumi. More recently, there has been some revival of the language, with the publication of dictionaries — Mingrelian-Georgian by Otar Kajaia, and Mingrelian-German by Otar Kajaia and Heinz Fähnrich — and poetry books by Lasha Gaxaria, Edem Izoria, Lasha Gvasalia, Guri Otobaia, Giorgi Sichinava, Jumber Kukava, and Vaxtang Xarchilava.
The main dialects and sub-dialects of Mingrelian are: