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Georgian is spoken by approximately four million people, mainly in the Republic of Georgia where it is the official language. Approximately 98 percent of the population speak Georgian as their first language. A significant number of Georgian speakers also live in Iran (1,000 to 10,000) and Turkey (40,000). A small number of Georgian speakers live in the United States. Since Russian was the official language of the former Georgia Soviet Socialist Republic, a great number of Georgian speakers are also fluent in Russian.


Linguistic Affiliation

Georgian is a member of South Caucasian (or Kartvelian) branch of the Caucasian language family which is spoken in the area between the Black and Caspian Seas. It is not demonstrably related to any other language family. There are other subdivisions of the Caucasian family, but the exact division and their membership is debated by researchers. The term "Georgian" is sometimes used as a cover term for all South Caucasian languages. Some scholars maintain that Basque, a language whose affiliation is often hotly debated, is related to Caucasian languages (Ruhlen 1987). Georgian is the most widely spoken Caucasian language.


Language Variation

Georgian is made up of a number of dialects that fall into two major groups: Western and Eastern. Among the Western dialects are what some scholars call mountain dialects. The standard language is based on the Eastern dialects of Kartlian and Kaxetian (Vogt 1971). At least one scholar (Hewitt 1985) claims that standard Georgian is based only on the prestige Kartlian dialect of the capital city Tbilisi.

The variation between the Georgian dialects is reflected at all levels of the language. Some of the dialects are isolated geographically--existing as enclaves in the mountains, for example, Xevsurian, or cut off from other Georgian dialects by other languages (Harris 1984). This explains why the so-called mountain dialects are considered linguistically conservative (Vogt 1971). These dialects, in some cases, retain features of Old Georgian that have been lost in standard Georgian.


Orthography

Until 1989, Georgian was the only written language among the South Caucasian languages. A unique Georgian alphabet was devised following the country's conversion to Christianity in 337. The script does not differentiate between upper- and lower-case forms and consists of thirty-eight characters.


Linguistic Sketch

Georgian is an inflected language. The language distinguishes eight nominal cases (nominative, ergative, accusative/dative, genitive, instrumental, adverbial, ablative, and locative) in one declension, and marks singular and plural by a suffix on nouns preceding the case marker. There is no grammatical gender. Pronouns are declined and display number and case for subject, direct object, indirect object, and possessive forms. Verbs can show agreement with the subject, object, and indirect object. The verbal system is very complex; the language makes two distinctions, between stative or action verbs and transitive or intransitive verbs. Tense/aspect divides into three series (present-future, aorist, and perfect), and the form of subject, object, and indirect object agreement marked on the verb varies by series.

Word order is relatively free; Subject-Verb-Object, Subject-Object-Verb and Object-Subject-Verb all occur.

Georgian has five vowels and a consonant inventory of twenty-nine phonemes, including ejectives. (Ejectives are sounds made with the air pushed out by the vocal cords instead of the lungs.) Consonants can occur in clusters of up to six sounds, for example in the word mcvrtneli 'trainer'.


Georgian Alphabet

There are 33 phonemes in Modern Standard Georgian: 5 vowels and 28 consonants. The Georgian alphabet has 33 graphemes (letters) for these 33 phonemes (sounds): one grapheme for each sound. Spelling usually coincides with pronunciation.

The Georgian alphabet has its own independent place among the alphabets known to the world. The oldest known inscriptions date from the beginning of the 5th century. The writing has undergone considerable changes since then.  

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