The Georgian language, nursed by the mountains of Caucasus and spoken by more than 4 million people, is something very unique, and we are so lucky to encounter it on our Langventure. It is the language that can find common grounds with many others, yet, at the same time, stand out in its own authenticity. Say "გამარჯობა!" (guh-muhr-joba) — "Hello!" to Georgian.
This is one of the most ancient languages in the world, from the same "club" as Hebrew, Finnish, Persian— languages that managed to preserve over the centuries the most of its alphabet and pronunciation. More on this in our next Episode. For now, let's get to know Georgian not from a historical point of view, but in relation to other languages.
The great thing about it is that, almost like in Spanish, every Georgian letter represents only one sound, no exceptions. That is to say, no matter where in a word any of its letters stand, you are to pronounce them the same way — always. This quality also makes Georgian one of the rare languages that have exactly the same number of sounds as they do letters.
Like Russian, its script has 33 letters, but only 5 of them are vowels (Russian has 10 vowels), so you'll find yourself constantly bumping into groups of pressed together consonants — this aspect of pronunciation might take some time to master. Almost like Japanese, Georgian has three alphabets: Asomtavruli (since ancient times), Nuskhuri (for churh purposes), and Mkhedruli (for citizens). The latter one is the alphabet used nowadays — the one I spelled the Georgian "hello" in. And just like in the Thai language, that script has letters depicted in symbols looking more as pictures of flowers, in this case, than a text.
Yet, Georgian is the language like no other on the whole planet! Which means that when you set about to learn it, all your knowledge in English, or French, or German, or even Russian and Hindi won't help your progress, not in the slightest. Add to that the unique shapes and sounds of the script you would have to memorize and all the complicated ways the verbs change, and the challenge is amplified.
But the consolation prizes here are:
- there are no articles in Georgian, which is good news since you won't have to learn and commit to memory different new words and ways of using them;
- there are no prepositions in Georgian (although, there are postpositions);
- there is no cursive in Georgian: the letters are simply not designed to fit each other this way, which means you will always be able to read the written texts, no matter who wrote them;
- there are no capital letters — not for the names, not for countries, or rivers, or streets, etc., and that can be good because some languages, like English, for example, start words with capital letters that other languages do not;
- it reads left to right, like you're used to, and it doesn't have any unexpected pronunciation or spelling tweaks — what you hear is what you see.
Georgian adopts words from Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Greek. So, even though the majority of that Georgian vocabulary you'll have to memorize as the words won't ignite any associations, some of them might be in a way quite familiar, but let's leave that for an Episode ahead.
Interesting fact: "Georgian language" in Georgian is called ქართული ენა (kar-too-lee eh-nuh), meaning literally "Kartveli's language" as the name of the Georgian people for themselves is Kartveli, and the name for their country is Sakartvelo (including in all of the documents inside Georgia), translated as "the place where Kartveli people live". Then how did it come to be named "Georgia", you ask? This word is derived from the Persian name Gorjistan meaning "the land of wolves" — and peaking into the history behind it I'll leave up to you ;)
Some sources share such information that the stress in Georgian always falls on the first syllable, no exceptions! In truth, as you'll surely notice yourself in your study of Georgian, the stress in the language is, what they call, "irrelevant" — it is not as distinctly highlighted as it is, say, in English or Russian. Georgian stress is soft, you are to put an even effort pronouncing stressed and unstressed vowels. But let me also provide here for you the official rules for stress in Georgian:
- In words with 2 or 3 syllables, it falls on the 2nd syllable from the end:
მადლობა — madlóba ("thank you"); - in words with more than 3 syllables, it falls on the 3rd syllable from the end:
ქრისტიანობა — kristiánoba ("Christianity"); - in words adopted from other languages, it is where it is in the original words.
But as a rule of thumb for the beginners, it is safe enough to pronounce Georgian words with the stress on the first syllable: ქართული — kártuli ("Georgian"). That said, words that have four syllables and more can actually acquire two stresses... Sometimes there will be words that don't follow the aforementioned rules, but since the stress doesn't change the meaning of a Georgian word, it doesn't really matter.
See? Stress is irrelevant. And this phrase should be a bumper sticker :)
So is it hard to learn Georgian? No, the language is quite straightforward, the only real difficulty is the way verbs function. Once you are past the first shock of new sounds and unusual symbols, the journey into the Georgian language is engaging and fun.
And ours has only just begun!
ნახვამდის! (Nukh-vum-dis!) Bye!
"This article is a gem, just like Georgian!"
Discover more about Georgian and other languages at langventure.mystrikingly.com!
