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.
34-513: Makharadze ( Georgian : მახარაძე ) is a Georgian surname which may refer to: 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 the Kartlian dialect, and all dialects are mutually intelligible. The history of Georgian spans from Early Old Georgian in
68-451: 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
102-552: 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
136-665: 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
170-490: 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
204-399: 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
238-456: A sponsor of the monastery and a mechurchletukhutsesi ("high treasurer"), echoing a popular legend that Rustaveli was a minister at Queen Tamar ’s court and retired to the monastery at an advanced age. Both a folk tradition and the 17th-century royal poet Archil identify Rustaveli as a native of the southern Georgian region of Meskheti , where his home village Rustavi was located (in modern-day Aspindza Municipality , not to be confused with
272-589: 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
306-470: 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 : Shota Rustaveli Shota Rustaveli ( Georgian : შოთა რუსთაველი , c. 1160 – after c. 1220), mononymously known simply as Rustaveli , was a medieval Georgian poet. He
340-542: Is considered to be the pre-eminent poet of the Georgian Golden Age and one of the greatest contributors to Georgian literature . Rustaveli was the author of The Knight in the Panther's Skin , a Georgian national epic poem . Little, if anything, is known about Rustaveli from contemporary sources. Shota Rustaveli was born in 1166. He started serving Queen Tamar as a Minister of Finance in 1191. His poem itself, namely
374-998: 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
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#1732863210595408-401: 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
442-452: 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
476-494: 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
510-506: 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
544-452: 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 ,
578-703: The Rustaveli metro station , among many other landmarks bearing his name. Rustaveli has been featured on the 100 Georgian lari bill since the introduction of the currency in 1995. In 2001 Israel and Georgia jointly issued postage stamps to honor Shota Rustaveli. Streets in a number of cities in the former Soviet Union are named after Rustaveli, including in Moscow , Saint Petersburg (Russia), Kyiv , Lviv (Ukraine), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Yerevan , Gyumri (Armenia), and elsewhere, such as pathway in Jerusalem, which leads to
612-452: 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
646-480: The 15th through 18th centuries are more informative; they are almost unanimous in identifying him as Shota Rustaveli, a name that is preserved on a fresco and a document from the formerly Georgian Monastery of the Holy Cross at Jerusalem . The fresco was described by the Georgian pilgrim Timote Gabashvili in 1757/58 and rediscovered by a team of Georgian scholars in 1960. The same Jerusalem document speaks of Shota as
680-677: 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
714-568: 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
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#1732863210595748-403: 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 -,
782-509: The church of the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. It is set at the foot of two much larger images of saints and is accompanied by a Georgian-language inscription. The portrait was vandalized in June 2004 by an unknown perpetrator, who scratched out Rustaveli's face and part of the accompanying Georgian inscription with his name. Georgia officially complained to Israel after the priceless fresco
816-452: 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
850-498: 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
884-498: 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
918-472: 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
952-522: The modern-day city of Rustavi near Tbilisi ). He is assumed to have been born between 1160 and 1165. A legend states that Rustaveli was educated at the medieval Georgian academies of Gelati and Ikalto , and then in " Greece " (i.e., the Byzantine Empire ). He must have produced his major work no earlier than the 1180s and no later than the first decade of the 13th century, most probably 1205-1207. Shota Rustaveli died between 1245 and 1250. Rustaveli
986-562: The prologue, provides a clue to his identity: the poet identifies himself as "a certain Rustveli." "Rustveli" is not a surname, but a territorial epithet that can be interpreted as "of/from/holder of Rustavi"; although a 10th century manuscript fragment found in 1975 in Saint Catherine's Monastery in Sinai attests to its use as a cognomen by a noble house of Ru(i)staveli. Later Georgian authors from
1020-567: 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
1054-570: The works produced in Georgia. Two folios of this text, dating from the 16th century, are located in the Georgian National Center of Manuscripts in Tbilisi, and some lines of the poem from the 14th century are also held there. All other copies of the poem date from the 17th century. The only known contemporary portrait of Shota Rustaveli was painted on the eastern face of the southwest pillar of
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1088-399: 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
1122-783: Was defaced. The portrait and inscription have been restored. The highest Georgian state prize in the fields of art and literature is the Shota Rustaveli State Prize . Tbilisi's main thoroughfare is Rustaveli Avenue. In Tbilisi, one can also find the Rustaveli Theatre , the Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences , the Shota Rustaveli Tbilisi International Airport and
1156-427: Was well acquainted with Persian "and was therefore able to read and appreciate its poetry without having to resort to faulty translations". Rustaveli may have composed Persian verse as well. The Knight in the Panther's Skin has been translated into many languages. It was first printed in 1712 in the Georgian capital Tbilisi . The manuscripts of The Knight in the Panther's Skin occupy an important place among
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