Languages of Georgia

Georgian ქართული ენა kartuli ena is the official language of Georgia. The language, like Basque, is considered to be a language isolate, meaning it formed independently from any other language and therefore bears no resemblance to any languages other than those that branched from Georgian and developed alongside it, called the Kartvelian languages. With that being said, the Georgian language is just one of four actively spoken Kartvelian languages. There is some degree of mutual intelligibility between the Kartvelian languages, similar to that between Spanish and French. Speakers of the languages can tell that there is a relationship between the languages and that many of the roots and grammar rules are similar, but geography has caused these language to diverge from each other. All of the Kartvelian languages use a variant of the Georgian alphabet.

 

Laz is the variant of Georgian spoken by the Laz people who live in northern Turkey on the border of Turkey and Georgia, south of Adjara. Svan is primarily spoken in the historical region of Svaneti. Today, both Laz and Svan have only a few thousand speakers. Megruli (also called Mingrelian) is spoken in Samegrelo, which is located around the town of Zugdidi. Of the three non-Georgian Kartvelian languages, Megruli is the most widely spoken, and many in Samegrelo are making an attempt to keep the language alive. The Georgian language is the by far the most widely spoken language of the four Kartvelian languages, with somewhere around 4-5 million speakers worldwide, most of whom live in Georgia itself.

 

The current Georgian script ქართული დამწერლობა kartuli damtserloba is the third iteration of the Georgian script. The first script is called Asomtavruli ასომთავრული. This script was developed in the 5th century C.E. and can be seen carved into the walls of Bolnisi Church. The name of the alphabet comes from the words “ასო” aso (letter), მთავარი mtavari (main/primary), and -ური (an adjectival ending) and was used primarily for clerical writing and carving into stone.

 

The second Georgian script is called Nuskhuri  ნუსხური and comes from ნუსხა nuskha (timetable/roster) and -ური and was used predominantly for clerical and ecclesiastical purposes. Nuskhuri closely resembles the modern Armenian script as that they are both very angular with many letters resembling the Latin letters m, n, u, and h. This was done in an attempt to simplify the Asomtavruli script.

 

The current Georgian script is called Mkhedruli მხედრული and is derived from მხედარი (horseman/rider/cavalryman) and -ური. Unlike the first two scripts, the Mkhedruli script is exceptionally curvy, allowing its users more artistic and calligraphic liberty. One commonality between all three alphabets is that they are all unicameral--there is no difference between uppercase and lowercase letters. The modern form of the Mkhedruli script contains 33 letters--27 consonants and 5 vowels. This translates to one letter for each phoneme (sound) in the Georgian language.