Talk:Georgian language

Miscellaneous discussion

I notice that Theresa Knott removed a couple of links that were added by an anonymous user. That may have been the right thing to do, but could we have some sort of explanation for why it was done? --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 16:09, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To the user who corrected my incorrect encoding of Khutsuri and Mkhedruli, I wonder if you could add the Georgian script for Saint Mesrop Mashtots and King Farnavaz. Thanks. Hippietrail 14:47, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It is not unexpected that somebody removed St Mesrop Mashtots as believed inventor of the Georgian script. It may be controversial and it may be an Armenian-centric view. You may even have something to quote on it's being provably untrue. All the article states is that the invention is usually attributed to him and this is a fact:

568

93

So that's roughly 85.93% mentions to Mesrop vs. 14.07% to Farnavaz.

Please clarify the article and debunk any myths but cutting chunks out isn't the Wikipedia way. Hippietrail 06:58, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I moved this page back. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization). --mav 03:00, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Dear mav, I am Georgian historian. The Georgian (Kartvelian) language is a Iberian-Caucasian language (in Georgia is a well-known scientific school in the field of "IBERIAN-CAUCASIAN LINGUISTICS"). Georgian is spoken about 3 million abroad (Turkey, Russia, Iran, etc.). I think that for this article will be beter a title "Georgian alphabet" (or "Georgian language and alphabet"). Thank you in advance. --Dr. Levan Z. Urushadze 31 Jan 2004

I wouldn't object to the title Georgian language and alphabet but why does "and alphabet" need to be in the title? --mav 03:35, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It doesn't. We could certainly have separate Georgian language and Georgian alphabet articles though. Morwen 11:20, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)

The speaker population estimates are confusing especially when compared to the ones given in South Caucasian languages. Would someone please give the separate estimates for

How many people use Georgian (either as a native language or as an oficial or "everyday business" language) in each country;
How many people are native speakers of each of the four languages (Georgian, Svan, Laz, Megrelian) in each country.

My understanding from the data given is that the whole population of Georgia uses Georgian (because it is the official language and the only written one) but only about 70% (about 4 million) are native speakers. But that means that about 1.5 million people in Georgia are not native speakers of Georgian. Are they all speakers of the three dialects, or are there other languages (not South Caucasian) spoken in Georgia?
Jorge Stolfi 04:25, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

71% (more than 4 million) of the population of Georgia uses Georgian and are native speakers (ethnographic groups of Georgian people: Imeretians, Megrels, Guruls, Svans, Lazs (Chans), Ajarians, Rachvels, Lechkhumians, Kakhetians, Kartlis, Mokhevians, Khevsurs, Tushs).

Gender

I know that Georgian doesn't use masculine and feminine genders. However, according to grammatical gender there are many other types of "noun classes" that are also "genders" in linguistics. I don't know if Georgian has any of these other distinctions, so I was hesitant to simply say that "Georgian nouns have no gender." If anyone can clarify or expand, that'd be appreciated. Isomorphic 18:22, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Good question. AFAIK, Georgian has nothing at all resembling grammatical gender or noun classes -- it's rather like Turkish or Hungarian in that regard. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 13:40, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Writing direction

Is this alphabet written left-to-right or right-to-left?

Left to right. I'll look at the page and see if that has to be made clearer. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 16:11, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What's the pronunciation of these consonant clusters? Surely there must be some Schwas involved?

Not to my knowledge, but I have only a passing acquaintance with the language. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 21:25, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't know the language at all, but perhaps r, v and m can play vowels and form syllables? This is a common phenomenon elsewhere (Serbocroatian smrt = death, Hrvatska = Croatia; Czech Vltava = the river that flows through Prague; French théâtre = theatre/-er; German geben, denken, spielen = give, think, play actually end in -bm, -kng, -ln with nobody pronouncing the e).

David Marjanović david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at 22:07 CET-summertime 2005/8/7

Nope. Only vowels can form syllable nuclei in Georgian - which makes it that much more frightening. :) thefamouseccles 02:44, 31 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Contradiction?

Georgian is believed to have separated from Megrelian and Laz in the third millennium BC. Based on the degree of change, linguists (e.g. G.Klimov, T.Gamkrelidze, G.Machavariani) conjecture that the earliest split occurred in the second millennium BC or earlier, separating Svan from the other languages. Megrelian and Laz separated from Georgian roughly a thousand years later.

"Believed" by whom?

The linguists whose names are cited, I'd guess. Anyway, where do you see a "contradiction" here? --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 14:54, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ouch. On rereading, I see the contradiction. This really needs cleanup. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 13:16, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Phantom vowel

"In English, the closest sound to this is in the word rhythm, which can be heard in the pronunciation of the letters -th- and -m, in the pronunciation of e in the word butter, and in the pronuncation of train between the letters t and r."

Um, in my dialect, there is no vowel between these consonants. I pronounce them [rIDm=], [bV4r\=], and [t_SrEjn]. What's this "phantom" vowel supposed to be, exactly? -- Dysfunktion 00:38, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you about "train", but in my dialect, and in standard American pronunciation in general, "rhythm" and "butter" do indeed have vowels. That's why they're two syllables -- "rhyth-?m" and "but-ter"; no syllable is possible without a vowel. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 05:23, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, for me anyway, m and r are the vowels --Dysfunktion 19:22, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think most phoneticians reckon that there's a very short schwa before English "syllabic" consonants. If the consonant is /r/, it sort of fuses with the schwa in a phenomenon called rhotacization. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 19:51, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This phantom vowel business is patently false. First of all, it is not physically impossible to pronounce two contiguous consonants. Second, if you have any doubts that Georgians can speak several contiguous consonants, listen to a word with a so-called "harmonic cluster", where a cluster of consonants has only a single release. If there were interceding vowels, there would be multiple releases. As for the really long clusters, despite what some books say, I think there must be something syllabic in there (although the one syllable per vowel rule might be useful for determining the position of the stress), but I don't think it's a schwa. I'm in Georgia at the moment, so I will listen for it, but I think it will be difficult to pin down as the really long clusters seem to be rare among commonly used words. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 12:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, there is no "phantom vowel" between any consonants in Georgian. Entire cluster is pronounced at once. Also no consonant (r, m, etc) function as a vowel. Giorgi from Georgia

Mother and father

I don't know Georgian, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Georgian words for mother and father are "reversed" from the pattern observed in most Indo-European and many non-Indo-European languages. As I remember, father is mama and mother is dada or tata or papa (I can't remember which). Anyway, could someone who knows Georgian please add the correct information to the article Mama and papa? Thanks! --Angr/_comhrá 06:51, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Done. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 19:48, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In Georgian father is mama and mother is deda. Levan Z. Urushadze, 18 January 2006

English zelkova = Russian дзельква = Georgian ძელქვა ?

I've been researching the English word zelkova which is said to derive from a Caucasian language. Dictionaries are very hard to find so could anybody here verfiy that I've tracked down the right word please? — Hippietrail 13:46, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. you have tracked down the right word. But, I am not sure whether it is Russian or Georgian origin. I also looked it up in merriam-webster online dictionary (is that where you looked it up?) and it also gives the both Russian and Georgian origin, but does not tell which.

The OED gives the following brief etymology:

[mod.L. (E. Spach 1841, in Ann. des Sci. Nat.: Bot. 2nd Ser. XV. 352), f. zelkoua, tselkwa, cited by Spach as local names for Z. carpinifolia in the Caucasus: cf. mod.Russ. dzel´kova grabolistnaya.]

"f." means "from". It doesn't give the language, but it looks like the English and Russian both derive from the Caucasian source. --kwamikagami 04:09, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC) [that's weird, I'm logged in but can't sign my name.]

Hi! Dzelkva is a tree. Dzeli - beam and kva-stone. It is indigenous plant growing in Georgia. As its timber is rockhard we call it dzelkva. SO it is not difficult where from this word is coming. Rezo Best regards

I concur. Dzelqva is a combination of two words: Dzeli - pole, pillar; qva - stone, rock. I highly doubt its Russian origin. None of these words are meaningful in Russian.

Inconsistent romanization

We seem to have at least two inconsistent romanization schemes in this article; I'd like to settle on one. In the table that lists the vowels and consonants, we use IPA, which I personally prefer, whereas in some of the following discussions we use symbols like ç which are not IPA and which we never define.

ACW 19:35, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

ç is, in fact, an IPA symbol (voiceless palatal fricative as in German ich), but I don't know if that's how it's being used here. --Angr/_comhrá 23:29, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's almost true. The voiceless palatal fricative is written in IPA with a "curly-tailed c", not a c with cedille. I wish I knew the Unicode for the former, so I could insert it here. Anyway, I've certainly seen the latter used for the former, and that's the sound I thought of when I saw the romanization. But alas, that segment is not used in Georgian. The writer probably meant ʧ. I wish somebody with better IPA-typing skills than I have would go through and make this consistent. ACW 02:22, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect Use of IPA

/x/ & /ɣ/ are VELAR, not uvular. I would edit the article, but I don't know if Georgian has uvular or velar fricatives- so I'm not sure which way to edit it. BryanAJParry

They range from velar to uvular depending upon context; some people use more uvulars, some more velars. Most reference grammars of Georgian call these either "velar-uvular" or "postvelar". One could put them in the velar class for the sake of regularity, I suppose, but to do that is to oversimplify the phonetic reality. thefamouseccles 02:54, 26 Aug 2005 (UTC)

"Georgian, A Reading Grammar" by Howard I Aronson says they are both postvelar, but uses the symbol ɣ for the voiced fricative. I am currently in Georgia, so I will try to listen more carefully, but from what I have heard, it is [ɣ] at least in certain contexts. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 11:43, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Unicode adds Nuskhuri

Unicode, up till version 4.1.0, mapped Mkhedruli as an optional lowercase for the uppercase Asomtavruli. Version 4.1.0 encodes the lowercase Nuskhuri (from which Mkhedruli is derived), and maps Nuskhuri as the lowercase for Asomtavruli, clearing Mkhedruli for exclusively modern use. You can see it on the PDF, and it would be a good idea to work from that PDF to add another table for this article, a table for Nuskhuri. The reason I'm not adding this table myself is that I don't know which characters to mark as obsolete (the lavender cells in the existing two tables). --Shlomital 19:09, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Velar or palatal?

The phonology section of this article makes reference to velar fricatives, and then says that this is the sound in German Bach or Scottish Loch. But these sounds are voiceless palatal fricatives. So which is it? Did the original author mean the Georgian sound is palatal, or are the examples meant to be approximations? In the latter case, we should put in a note to that effect. 216.39.182.234 03:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

These words are both textbook examples of velar fricatives. The <ch> example from German commonly appears in reference to palatal fricatives since it is pronounced as a palatal fricative when it does not follow a back vowel, but it does in "Bach," making this an example of a velar fricative (/bax/). As for the Scottish version, I have no experience with the language itself, but its <ch> is constantly cited as identical to the German in "Bach."--Coyne025 02:30, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merge request

I am proposing that Georgian grammar be merged into this article. Most "XXX language" articles have the grammar section in the main article, even if the grammar section is very long (see Sanskrit language for an example). I would suggest that that's a good model to follow. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) (desk) 18:16, 10 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's the Sanskrit article that should be changed! Normal Wikipedia practice is to avoid very long articles by splitting sections out as sub-articles and placing a summary and link in the main article.

Adding a grammar summary to this article (perhaps three to five paragraphs) would enhance it. Readers who only need the basic information on grammar would see it right there, and those needing more detail would click through to find it. That seems the best way forward to me. Chris Jefferies 11:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Chris and Felix. Don't merge. The Sanskrit article is unnecessarily too long. Both Georgian language and Georgian grammar articles are long enough as they are, and they serve their separate purposes well. --jonsafari 23:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with Marnen/agree with Chris. The Georgian grammar article is waaaay too long to fit here without going dizzy. A brief couple-of-paragraphs summary should be added here, and the same with the alphabet. Sanskrit needs to be changed, just as Hungarian language/Hungarian grammar recently has.—Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 13:14, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Genetic classification: Caucasian languages is not a genetic family

It would be more correct to remove Caucasian languages from the classification field since it is not a genetic class.--Imz 20:12, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Disputed

Georgian writing system: phonemic orthography or phonetic orthography?

The article says it is phonetic orthography, whereas the phonemic orthography article says it is phonemic orthography (which sounds more plausible).

Georgian writing system is phonetic, meaning that it is read exactly as it is written.

This issue should be resolved by someone with enough knowledge.--Imz 06:48, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No native orthography of a language is "phonetic" in the sense phonetic is used in linguistics (something like "representing distinctions of sound made including ones that have no bearing on native speaker's interpretation of that sound"). However, they are "phonetic" in a sense that is common amongst lay-people (something like phonemic in the linguistic sense, or perhaps a union of phonemic and phonetic). Of course, an orthography might have phonetic aspects to it (frequently depending on how you descriminate between phonemes and allophones). In the interest of clarity, and because phonetic orthography goes nowhere, converting "phonetic" to "phonemic" is probably a good idea. —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 10:26, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've rewritten the section. Disputants, please look again and see if it now meets your objections. ACW 21:34, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Font

It would be helpful if a font containing the glyphs of the Georgian alphabet could be linked to (from both the Georgian alphabet and Georgian language pages). I don't know of any OSs that include one by default. Njál 00:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Clarity of Phonetic descriptions

Is the Georgian /v/ truly bilabial, or is it the labiodental sound to which this symbol is commonly assigned? Also, perhaps two columns could be used for Dental to further divide it into Alveolar, since at least the fricatives and affricates must be alveolar, and as result I am unsure if /t,d,n, and l/ are all dental as well.--Coyne025 02:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]