Written by Rebecca Schmor

In the above photo: Tbilisi, Georgia

CASLT’s Discovering Languages series aims to spark interest in plurilingualism and pluriculturalism among language learners, school communities, and the public. Each featured language is explored in a blog article and accompanied by a classroom-ready activity for language teachers. Use these activities to promote and popularize language learning among your students and help them develop intercultural competencies.

The Georgian language — the official language of the country of Georgia — has a unique linguistic history spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia, the Black Sea and the Caucasus mountains. Read on to discover 10 things you (maybe) didn’t know about the Georgian language.

1. Georgian is a Kartvelian language

Georgian is the most widely spoken language in the Kartvelian language family (also known as South Caucasian or Iberian languages). Other languages in this family include Svan, Zan, and Laz. Kartvelian languages are spoken primarily in Georgia, as well as by Indigenous communities in Azerbaijan and Turkey, and in diasporic communities in Russia, Iran, Europe, North America, and Israel. The Kartvelian language family is not related to other language families, which makes it one of the world’s primary language families.

2. The Georgian alphabet has three writing systems

The three writing systems used in the Georgian language are known as the Georgian scripts: Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri, and Mkhedruli. They are all written from left to right, and their letters have the same names and alphabetical order but different appearances. The standard script for modern Georgian is Mkhedruli, while Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri are used by the Georgian Orthodox Church for religious texts and ceremonies. The UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity includes the “Living culture of three writing systems of the Georgian alphabet.”

3. Georgian script originated in the 5th century AD

Written in Asomtavruli script, the Old Georgian Bir el Qutt inscriptions are recognized as the earliest literary source in any Kartvelian language. They were found near Bethlehem at the site of an ancient Georgian monastery dating back to around 430 AD.

4. The Georgian language has at least 18 dialects

With more than 18 mutually intelligible dialects spoken in five regions of Georgia, modern standard Georgian is based on the central Kartilan dialect. The historical region of Kartli was once known as Iberia and is now home to Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. Outside of Georgia, two eastern dialects are spoken in Azerbaijan (Ingiloan dialect) and Iran (Fereydanian dialect). There is also a language variety spoken by Georgian Jews called Judæo-Georgian.

5. Georgian has words that begin with seven consonants

Georgian has many words that begin with combined consonant sounds, such as the word “water,” which starts with two consonants: წყალი (ts’q’ali). More extreme examples include the word “trainer” — მწვრთნელი (mts’vrtneli) — which starts with six consonants, or the word “you train us” — გვწვრთნი (gvts’vrtni) — which has seven initial consonant sounds.

6. Georgian doesn’t use pronouns

Georgian is a pro-drop (pronoun-dropping) language, like Spanish, Greek, or Hindi, meaning that subject pronouns (like “I” or “she”) are regularly omitted. Pronouns are only used for emphasis or when there is ambiguity.

7. Georgian has seven cases

Like Ukrainian, German, and Latin, Georgian has multiple noun cases, including nominative, ergative, dative, genitive, instrumental, adverbial, and vocative. For example, in the Georgian phrase Sakartvelos resp’ublik’a (the republic of Georgia), the word “Georgia” is in the genitive case. Comparatively, English currently uses three cases: nominative (e.g., “I”), accusative (e.g., “me”), and genitive (e.g., “my”).

8. Georgian has no articles

Just like Chinese, Japanese, Estonian, and Finnish, the Georgian language does not use definite or indefinite articles (like “the” or “a” in English). Instead, the information usually expressed by articles can be conveyed through word order. Georgian has a flexible word order, using subject-object-verb, subject-verb-object, and sometimes object-subject-verb order.

9. Georgian has three ways to negate

When using negation in Georgian, speakers must decide between “ar” (not), “ver” (cannot), and “nu” (do not!). While “ar” is used most commonly (e.g., Tsasvla ar minda; I do not want to go), “ver” indicates an inability to carry out an action (e.g., Ver movedi; I could not come), and “nu” is only used when giving negative commands (e.g., Nu nerviulob!; Don’t worry!).

10. Georgian has two sets of month names

Based on the ancient Georgian calendar that reflected the traditional agricultural seasons, the old months of the year include names such as აპნისი (Ap’nisi) or “Month of Waters” for January, თიბათვე (Tibatve) “Month of Mowing” for June, and მკათათვე (Mk’atatve) “Month of Reaping” for July. In the ancient calendar, the new year started in September. Modern month names mimic the Gregorian calendar, such as დეკემბერი (Dek’emberi) for December.

As you can see, the Georgian language is linguistically and culturally rich. Which fact about Georgian do you find the most interesting?

Comparing Language Systems: Georgian, English, and Other Languages

Activity Description

This activity is designed with university-level English language learners in mind, but can be adapted for use in other contexts and with other target languages. The activity promotes plurilingual language learning by inviting learners to analyze and compare features of the Georgian language with the target language (in this case, English) as well as other languages. Through this activity, learners can bring their knowledge of other languages into the classroom, expand their awareness of different language systems, and reflect on their interactions with diverse speakers and language learners.

Activity Steps

1. Introducing the Georgian Language (15 minutes)

Show samples of text or audio in the Georgian language and invite learners to identify the language and share what they know (or don’t know) about it. Discuss the importance of learning about other (especially underrepresented or historically excluded) languages and how cross-linguistic comparison can help improve language learning abilities.

2. Comparing Language Systems (35 minutes)

In small groups, invite learners to analyze the chart below and share responses to the questions by drawing on the other languages they know or conducting some research on other language systems. As a class, discuss the examples given or refer to the answer key that follows.

3. Analyzing Student Writing (25 minutes)

Extract a series of language errors found in student writing and invite learners to work together to correct these sentences, prompting them to consider some of the features of different language systems discussed in the activity in step 2. For example, in a sentence like “This is reason why,” learners could identify an error in article use, and discuss how articles are used in English and in other languages.

4. Reflecting on Intercultural Communication (15 minutes)

Framing communicative understanding as a shared responsibility, invite learners to discuss the following questions:

1. What features of other language systems have you heard/might you hear being used in English?
2. How can you use your knowledge of different language systems to help you better understand other learners of English?

Activity Answer Key

Adapting the Activity

This activity can be adapted by changing the target language(s), removing or adding steps (e.g., doing some online research), or modifying which features to analyze in comparing language systems.

References

Hewitt, G. (2005). Georgian: A learner’s grammar. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Georgian-A-Learners-Grammar/Hewitt/p/book/9780415333719

Lobzhanidze, I. (2022). The Georgian language. In Finite-state computational morphology (pp. 3–115). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90248-3_2

Shosted, R. K., & Chikovani, V. (2006). Standard Georgian. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 36(2), 255–264. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44526423