Georgian ( ქართული ენა , kartuli ena , pronounced [ˈkʰartʰuli ˈena] ) is the most widely spoken Kartvelian language ; it serves as the literary language or lingua franca for speakers of related languages. It is the official language of Georgia and the native or primary language of 88% of its population. Its speakers today amount to approximately 3.8 million. Georgian is written with its own unique Georgian scripts , alphabetical systems of unclear origin.
42-704: The Abazasdze family ( Georgian : აბაზასძე ) was a noble family in Georgia with a surge in prominence in the 11th century. The Abazasdze are hypothesized by the Georgian historian Nodar Shoshiashvili to have descended from the house of Tbeli of Kartli . Tbeli Abazay, mentioned in an 11th-century Georgian inscription from the Bortsvisjvari church at Tbeti , may have been the family's eponymous founder, while Ivane Abazasdze , eristavi ("duke") of Kartli, could have been his grandson. Ivane Abazasdze wielded influence in
84-404: A phrase structure grammar and once according to a dependency-based analysis associated with a dependency grammar . The first group of trees illustrate left-branching: The upper row shows the constituency-based structures, and the lower row the dependency-based structures. In the constituency-based structures, left-branching is present (but not really visible) in so far as the non-head daughter
126-451: A vigesimal numeric system like Basque and (partially) French . Numbers greater than 20 and less than 100 are described as the sum of the greatest possible multiple of 20 plus the remainder. For example, "93" literally translates as 'four times twenty plus thirteen' ( ოთხმოცდაცამეტი , otkhmotsdatsamet’i ). One of the most important Georgian dictionaries is the Explanatory dictionary of
168-552: A Roman grammarian from the 2nd century AD. The first direct attestations of the language are inscriptions and palimpsests dating to the 5th century, and the oldest surviving literary work is the 5th century Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik by Iakob Tsurtaveli . The emergence of Georgian as a written language appears to have been the result of the Christianization of Georgia in the mid-4th century, which led to
210-665: A capital-like effect called Mtavruli for titles and inscriptions. Georgian is an agglutinative language with a complex verb structure that can include up to eight morphemes , exhibiting polypersonalism . The language has seven noun cases and employs a left-branching structure with adjectives preceding nouns and postpositions instead of prepositions. Georgian lacks grammatical gender and articles, with definite meanings established through context. Georgian's rich derivation system allows for extensive noun and verb formation from roots, with many words featuring initial consonant clusters. The Georgian writing system has evolved from ancient scripts to
252-649: A language is just a tendency and it often shows exceptions. Spanish , for example, while overwhelmingly right-branching, puts numeral modifiers before nouns and, in certain cases, objects before verbs. Languages like English or Swedish, though regarded as being right-branching because the main verbs precede direct objects, place adjectives and numerals before their nouns. On the contrary, Northwest Caucasian languages such as Ubykh or Abkhaz are strongly left-branching but put adjectives after nouns. Some languages, however, are exclusively left-branching or right-branching. Japanese and most other languages of northeastern Asia and
294-481: A phrase structure grammar are illustrated with the following trees: The binary branching on the left is closely associated with the structures of GB, MP, and LFG, and it is similar to what the X-bar schema assumes. The n-ary branching structure on the right is a more traditional approach to branching. One can muster arguments for both approaches. For instance, the critics of the strictly binary branching structures charge that
336-490: A ri means 'friend'; megobrebi ( megob Ø rebi ) means 'friends', with the loss of a in the last syllable of the word stem. Georgian has seven noun cases: nominative , ergative , dative , genitive , instrumental , adverbial and vocative . An interesting feature of Georgian is that, while the subject of a sentence is generally in the nominative case and the object is in the accusative case (or dative), one can find this reversed in many situations (this depends mainly on
378-399: A row, as may be seen in words like გვფრცქვნ ი gvprtskvni 'you peel us' and მწვრთნ ელი mts’vrtneli 'trainer'. Vicenik has observed that Georgian vowels following ejective stops have creaky voice and suggests this may be one cue distinguishing ejectives from their aspirated and voiced counterparts. Georgian has been written in a variety of scripts over its history. Currently
420-545: A stereotypical combination of left- and right-branching in English: Determiners (e.g. the ) always and subjects (e.g. the child ) usually appear on left branches in English, but infinitival verbs (e.g. try , eat ) and the verb particle to usually appear on right branches. In the big picture, right-branching structures tend to outnumber the left-branching structures in English, which means that trees usually grow down to
462-509: A structure can be entirely left- or entirely right-branching. The following sentence is completely left-branching. The constituency-based trees are on the left, and the dependency-based trees are on the right: The category Po (= possessive) is used to label possessive ' s . The following sentence is completely right-branching: Most structures in English are, however, not completely left- or completely right-branching, but rather they combine both. The following trees illustrate what can be seen as
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#1732868622395504-589: A word. Georgian vowels in non-initial syllables are pronounced with a shorter duration compared to vowels in initial syllables. long polysyllabic words may have a secondary stress on their third or fourth syllable. Georgian contains many "harmonic clusters" involving two consonants of a similar type (voiced, aspirated, or ejective) that are pronounced with only a single release; e.g. ბგ ერა bgera 'sound', ცხ ოვრება tskhovreba 'life', and წყ ალი ts’q’ali 'water'. There are also frequent consonant clusters , sometimes involving more than six consonants in
546-536: Is because syllables in the language often begin with two consonants. Recordings are available on the relevant Wiktionary entries, linked to below. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights : Left-branching language In linguistics , branching refers to the shape of the parse trees that represent the structure of sentences. Assuming that the language is being written or transcribed from left to right , parse trees that grow down and to
588-611: Is more right-branching than left-branching. Some languages such as Japanese and Turkish are almost fully left-branching (head-final). Some languages are mostly right-branching (head-initial). Languages typically construct phrases with a head word (or nucleus) and zero or more dependents (modifiers). The following phrases show the phrase heads in bold. Examples of left-branching phrases (= head-final phrases): Examples of right-branching phrases (= head-initial phrases): Examples of phrases that contain both left- and right-branching (= head-medial phrases): Concerning phrases such as
630-404: Is now completely visible in both the constituency- and dependency-based trees. The head appears in a medial position, which means that the phrase combines both types of branching. Note that the (b)-trees also contain a PP phrase that is an instance of pure right-branching. The nature of branching is most visible with full trees. The following trees have been chosen to illustrate the extent to which
672-947: Is rather light, and in fact Georgian transliterates the tenuis stops in foreign words and names with the ejectives. The coronal occlusives ( /tʰ tʼ d n/ , not necessarily affricates) are variously described as apical dental, laminal alveolar, and "dental". Per Canepari, the main realizations of the vowels are [ i ], [ e̞ ], [ ä ], [ o̞ ], [ u ]. Aronson describes their realizations as [ i̞ ], [ e̞ ], [ ä ] (but "slightly fronted"), [ o̞ ], [ u̞ ]. Shosted transcribed one speaker's pronunciation more-or-less consistently with [ i ], [ ɛ ], [ ɑ ], [ ɔ ], [ u ]. Allophonically, [ ə ] may be inserted to break up consonant clusters, as in /dɡas/ [dəɡäs] . In casual speech, /iV, Vi/ sequences can be realized phonetically as [jV~i̯V, Vj~Vi̯]. Phrase-final unstressed vowels may sometimes be partially reduced. Prosody in Georgian involves stress, intonation, and rhythm. Stress
714-442: Is to the left of the head. In the corresponding dependency-based structures in the lower row, the left-branching is clear; the dependent appears to the left of its head, the branch extending down to the left. The following structures demonstrate right-branching: The upper row again shows the constituency-based structures, and the lower row the dependency-based structures. The constituency-based structures are right-branching insofar as
756-401: Is very weak, and linguists disagree as to where stress occurs in words. Jun, Vicenik, and Lofstedt have proposed that Georgian stress and intonation are the result of pitch accents on the first syllable of a word and near the end of a phrase. According to Borise, Georgian has fixed initial word-level stress cued primarily by greater syllable duration and intensity of the initial syllable of
798-452: The Dittionario giorgiano e italiano . These were meant to help western Catholic missionaries learn Georgian for evangelical purposes. On the left are IPA symbols, and on the right are the corresponding letters of the modern Georgian alphabet, which is essentially phonemic. Former /qʰ/ ( ჴ ) has merged with /x/ ( ხ ), leaving only the latter. The glottalization of the ejectives
840-494: The Mkhedruli script is almost completely dominant; the others are used mostly in religious documents and architecture. Mkhedruli has 33 letters in common use; a half dozen more are obsolete in Georgian, though still used in other alphabets, like Mingrelian, Laz, and Svan. The letters of Mkhedruli correspond closely to the phonemes of the Georgian language. According to the traditional account written down by Leonti Mroveli in
882-506: The Georgian Orthodox Church and together are called Khutsuri 'priest alphabet'. In Mkhedruli , there is no case. Sometimes, however, a capital-like effect, called Mtavruli ('title' or 'heading'), is achieved by modifying the 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
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#1732868622395924-452: The Kartlian dialect. Over the centuries, it has exerted a strong influence on the other dialects. As a result, they are all, generally, mutually intelligible with standard Georgian, and with one another. The history of the Georgian language is conventionally divided into the following phases: The earliest extant references to Georgian are found in the writings of Marcus Cornelius Fronto ,
966-500: The Minimalist Program (MP), and Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) assumes all branching to be binary. Other theories (both constituency- and dependency-based ones), e.g. early Transformational Grammar , Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar , Meaning-Text Theory , Word Grammar , etc. allow for n-ary branching. This distinction can have a profound impact on the overall nature of the theory of syntax. The two main possibilities in
1008-542: The 1030s, during the early reign of Bagrat IV of Georgia . The contemporaneous Georgian hagiography Vita of George the Athonite by Giorgi Mtsire described Ivane Abazasdze and his four brothers as "heroic and strong in their wealth and boastful of their arms and proud of the multitude of their army." Their failed plot to assassinate Bagrat IV resulted in the family's loss of much of their influence and prestige. They are only rarely mentioned in subsequent historical records, but
1050-452: The 11th century, the first Georgian script was created by the first ruler of the Kingdom of Iberia , Pharnavaz , in the 3rd century BC. The first examples of a Georgian script date from the 5th century AD. There are now three Georgian scripts, called Asomtavruli 'capitals', Nuskhuri 'small letters', and Mkhedruli . The first two are used together as upper and lower case in the writings of
1092-558: The Abazasdze appear to have survived in Upper Kartli as royal vassals, aznauri , from the 15th century to the 18th. By the closing years of the 14th century, a branch of the family was established in Georgia's eastern region of Kakheti and, in the person of Khimshia Abazasdze-Marileli ("of Marili"), who had fought Timur 's invading army in 1399, was enfeoffed by the Georgian crown of
1134-568: The Georgian language ( ქართული ენის განმარტებითი ლექსიკონი ). It consists of eight volumes and about 115,000 words. It was produced between 1950 and 1964, by a team of linguists under the direction of Arnold Chikobava . 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, for example: In Georgian many nouns and adjectives begin with two or more contiguous consonants. This
1176-851: The Kartlian dialect, and all dialects are mutually intelligible. The history of Georgian spans from Early Old Georgian in the 5th century, to Modern Georgian today. Its development as a written language began with the Christianization of Georgia in the 4th century. Georgian phonology features a rich consonant system, including aspirated, voiced, and ejective stops , affricates , and fricatives . Its vowel system consists of five vowels with varying realizations. Georgian prosody involves weak stress, with disagreements among linguists on its placement. The language's phonotactics include complex consonant clusters and harmonic clusters. The Mkhedruli script , dominant in modern usage, corresponds closely to Georgian phonemes and has no case distinction, though it employs
1218-403: The character of the verb). This is called the dative construction . In the past tense of the transitive verbs, and in the present tense of the verb "to know", the subject is in the ergative case. 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 -,
1260-452: The current Mkhedruli, used for most purposes. The language has a robust grammatical framework with unique features such as syncope in morphophonology and a left-branching syntax. Georgian's vocabulary is highly derivational, allowing for diverse word formations, while its numeric system is vigesimal. No claimed genetic links between the Kartvelian languages and any other language family in
1302-498: The following words can be derived: Kart veli ('a Georgian person'), Kart uli ('the Georgian language') and Sa kart velo ('the country of 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. The ending - eli is a particle of nobility, comparable to French de , Dutch van , German von or Polish - ski . Georgian has
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1344-669: The former estates of the Abuletisdze in Eliseni in 1405. According to the historian Cyril Toumanoff , the latter-day Kakhetian noble family of Khimshiashvili descended from these "Abazads of Marili". This article about a member of the Georgian nobility is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Georgian language Georgian is most closely related to the Zan languages ( Megrelian and Laz ) and more distantly to Svan . Georgian has various dialects , with standard Georgian based on
1386-437: The house and the house there , this article assumes the traditional NP analysis, meaning that the noun is deemed to be head over the determiner. On a DP-analysis ( determiner phrase ), the phrase the house would be right-branching instead of left-branching. Left- and right-branching structures are illustrated with the trees that follow. Each example appears twice, once according to a constituency-based analysis associated with
1428-498: The like. This is the Georgian standard keyboard layout. The standard Windows keyboard is essentially that of manual typewriters . Georgian is an agglutinative language . Certain prefixes and suffixes can be joined in order to build a verb. In some cases, one verb can have up to eight different morphemes in it at the same time. An example is ageshenebinat ('you [all] should've built [it]'). The verb can be broken down to parts: a-g-e-shen-eb-in-a-t . Each morpheme here contributes to
1470-472: The meaning of the verb tense or the person who has performed the verb. The verb conjugation also exhibits polypersonalism ; a verb may potentially include morphemes representing both the subject and the object. In Georgian morphophonology , syncope is a common phenomenon. When a suffix (especially the plural suffix - eb -) is attached to a word that has either of the vowels a or e in the last syllable, this vowel is, in most words, lost. For example, megob
1512-423: The more discontinuities can occur, which means the component of the theory that addresses discontinuities must play a greater role. Given the flatter structures associated with n-ary branching, certain phenomena (e.g. inversion and shifting ) do not result in discontinuities, a fact that reduces the role that the component for discontinuities must play in the theory. As stated above, the main branching trait for
1554-441: The non-head daughter is to the right of the head. This right-branching is completely visible in the lower row of dependency-based structures, where the branch extends down to the right. The (c)-examples contain one instance of right-branching (the upper branch) and one instance of left-branching (the lower branch). The following trees illustrate phrases that combine both types of branching: The combination of left- and right-branching
1596-617: The replacement of Aramaic as the literary language . By the 11th century, Old Georgian had developed into Middle Georgian. The most famous work of this period is the epic poem The Knight in the Panther's Skin , written by Shota Rustaveli in the 12th century. In 1629, a certain Nikoloz Cholokashvili authored the first printed books written (partially) in Georgian, the Alphabetum Ibericum sive Georgianum cum Oratione and
1638-401: The right are right-branching , and parse trees that grow down and to the left are left-branching . The direction of branching reflects the position of heads in phrases , and in this regard, right-branching structures are head-initial , whereas left-branching structures are head-final . English has both right-branching (head-initial) and left-branching (head-final) structures, although it
1680-713: The right. The X-bar schema combines left- and right-branching. The standard X-bar schema has the following structure: This structure is both left- and right branching. It is left-branching insofar as the bar-level projection of the head (X') follows the specifier, but it is right-branching insofar as the actual head (X ) precedes the complement. Despite these conflicting traits, most standard X-bar structures (in English) are more right-branching than left-branching because specifiers tend to be less complex (i.e. fewer words) than complements. Much work in Government and Binding Theory (GB),
1722-426: The strict binarity is motivated more by a desire for theoretical purity than by empirical observation. Strictly binary branching structures increase the amount of syntactic structure (number of nodes) to the upper limit of what is possible, whereas flatter n-ary branching tends to restrict the amount of structure that the theory can assume. Worth noting in this area is that the more layered the syntactic structures are,
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1764-399: The world are accepted in mainstream linguistics. Among the Kartvelian languages, Georgian is most closely related to the so-called Zan languages ( Megrelian and Laz ); glottochronological studies indicate that it split from the latter approximately 2700 years ago. Svan is a more distant relative that split off much earlier, perhaps 4000 years ago. Standard Georgian is largely based on
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