Georgian Language
Georgian is a unique and ancient language primarily spoken in Georgia, situated in the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It belongs to the Kartvelian language family, which has existed for over two millennia and currently has around five million speakers globally. Georgian is notable for its distinct dialects, with Standard Georgian being the most widely used among the eighteen recognized dialects, and includes unique varieties such as Judeo-Georgian, traditionally spoken by Georgian Jews.
The language has a rich historical journey, evolving through several stages, including Early Old Georgian and Middle Georgian, before becoming the Modern Georgian spoken today. One of the significant features of Georgian is its complex system of intonation and rhythm, which can change meaning based on how words are spoken. Additionally, Georgian is characterized by harmonic clusters, where consonants are pronounced together without vowels, and it exhibits agglutinative properties, allowing for the formation of extensive words.
The Georgian alphabet, which has undergone several transformations, is crucial to its literary heritage, deeply influenced by the country's Christianization. Over the centuries, Georgian literature flourished, beginning with translations of Christian texts and fostering a tradition that includes epic poetry and biographies. Despite its challenges for non-native speakers, the language remains a vibrant part of Georgian identity and culture.
Georgian Language
Georgian is a language spoken primarily in the country of Georgia, in the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Georgian is today the most prominent member of the ancient Kartvelian language family. About five million people worldwide speak the Georgian language.
History and Classification
The Kartvelian language family from which Georgian descends arose in the Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, about two thousand years BCE. Modern linguists have determined that this set of languages is unrelated to any other existing language, meaning that modern Georgian survives as a mostly untainted ancient language.
Over the subsequent nearly two millennia, Kartvelian separated into the Svan and Common Georgian-Zan subcategories of languages. As speakers of these languages migrated to different regions of the Caucasus, the Common Georgian-Zan began dividing into its own set of languages. What eventually emerged from this were the languages of Georgian, Mingrelian, and Laz, all similar yet distinct dialects of the same base language.
At some point in the last few centuries BCE—historians disagree on whether it was closer to 300 or 100 BCE—Georgian diverged from Mingrelian and Laz and started gradually becoming its own full language. This process took about a thousand years to complete, as Georgian transitioned through several stages before becoming the modern language spoken in Georgia today.
The first of these stages was Early Old Georgian, which formed in about 500 CE and was spoken in the Caucasus until about 800 CE. By this time, the next phase of the language, Classical Old Georgian, had begun. This was used for another three hundred years before being replaced by Middle Georgian. This stage of the language proved stable, as it lasted for six hundred years and only began to fade from popular use in the 1700s with the onset of Modern Georgian. It is this version of Georgian that is spoken in Georgia and elsewhere today.
The written Georgian language, meanwhile, developed independently from its spoken counterpart. Georgian legend details how, in the 200s BCE, King Parnavaz saw the symbols of what became the Georgian alphabet while staring at the sun. In any case, some of the earliest known traces of Georgian writing, specifically the Asomtavruli script, have been found on the ruins of ancient Georgian structures. However, the first Georgian records purposefully written in this script date to the 400s C.E., when the Georgian people converted to Christianity.
The Christianization of the Georgians was an important factor in the Georgian alphabet's survival to the present day. Many Georgians had previously written in Aramaic, the language of ancient Israel's Jewish population and various other groups of people. After converting to Christianity, however, Georgians came to view Aramaic unfavorably as a pagan language and started refining their own Asomtavruli script so it would become popular in the region. They did this by adopting standardized grammatical forms and other lingual rules that made the language easier to learn.
The Asomtavruli script remained the primary written Georgian language until the 800s CE. At this time, Georgian scribes created the Nuskhuri script, which did not replace the Asomtavruli but rather coexisted with it. The Georgian alphabet was altered once again in the 1000s CE, when the Mkhedruli script was designed. Modern linguists have called this script the most fully developed and efficient of the three existing Georgian varieties. This is because the Mkhedruli features one letter per spoken sound that eliminates complexity and waste.
Just as Christianity played a major part in the standardization of the Georgian alphabet, so too did the religion drive the creation of what became Georgia's rich tradition of literature. This began in the 400s, when Georgians began translating Christian writings from Greek to Georgian.
That same century, Iakov Tsurtaveli composed one of the earliest known works of Georgian fiction, Shushanikis Tsameba. This was a piece of hagiography, a writing about the life of a saint. Other types of classical Georgian literature included epic poems and biographies of royal figures. These types of early Georgian works are still taught today in Georgian literature classes.
Modern Georgian has been cited as difficult for non-native speakers to master, mostly because of the extensive system of intonation and rhythm that are required to convey meaning when speaking the language; the same word spoken in different tones expresses different information.
Another fundamental element of Georgian is its harmonic clusters. These are groups of consonants that are spoken together in one sound, without the presence of vowels. Simultaneously, however, Georgian is an agglutinative language, which means that long, complicated words can be easily broken down into their syllabic parts.
Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage
Nearly 5 million people worldwide speak Georgian. Most of these, about 4.2 million, are Georgian citizens. Another approximately 500,000 Georgian speakers live elsewhere, mainly in nearby Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Iran, as well as in Israel and the United States.
The Georgian language today encompasses eighteen dialects, which are divided into the two larger categories of Eastern and Western. Standard Georgian, the most commonly spoken Georgian dialect, is of the Eastern dialect family. Another dialect of Georgian is Judeo-Georgian, a language initially spoken by Georgian Jews and now spoken by thousands of their descendants around the world, mostly in Israel.
Although Georgian is today classified as an archetypal Caucasian language—one of the Kartvelian varieties that developed in the Caucasus—throughout its long history it has also been exposed to and influenced by many other languages of Georgia's neighboring countries. These languages include Armenian, Greek, Persian (spoken in Iran), Russian, and Turkish.
Bibliography
Dalby, Andrew. Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More than 400 Languages. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 216–217. Print.
"Georgian Language." Effective Language Learning. Effective Language Learning. Web. 4 Aug. 2015. http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/georgian-language
"The Georgian Language." Kwintessential. Kwintessential. Web. 4 Aug. 2015. http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/language/about/georgian.html