Georgian (ქართულიkartuli) is aKartvelian language spoken by about 4 million people, primarily inGeorgia but also by indigenous communities in northernTurkey andAzerbaijan, and the diaspora, such as inRussia, Turkey,Iran,Europe, andNorth America. It is a highly standardized language, with established literary and linguistic norms dating back to the 5th century.[2]
There are at least 18dialects of the language. Standard Georgian is largely based on theprestigeKartlian dialect.[3] It has over centuries wiped out significant regional linguistic differences within Georgia, particularly through the centralized educational system and themass media. Dialects still retain their unique features in terms ofphonology,morphology,syntax, andvocabulary, but they are virtually entirely intelligible with each other.[4] The three otherKartvelian languages—Mingrelian,Svan andLaz—aresisters to Georgian, but are only partly intelligible to speakers of Standard Georgian or other Georgian dialects.
Some of the basic variations among the Georgian dialects include:
The presence ofglides [j] (ჲ) and [w] (ჳ) before certainvowels;
The presence ofqʰ (ჴ) andʔ (ჸ) sounds;
Distinction between long and short vowels;
Extra vowel sounds not found in Standard Georgian;
The Georgian dialects are classified according to their geographic distribution, reflecting a traditional ethnographic subdivision of theGeorgian people. Beyond the Western and Eastern categories, some scholars have also suggested a Southern group.[citation needed] These can be further subdivided into five main dialect groups as proposed by Gigineishvili, Topuria, and K'avtaradze (1961):[5]
The Central dialects, sometimes considered part of the Eastern group, are spoken in central and southern Georgia, and provide the basis for Standard Georgian language.
Two of these dialects, Ingiloan and Fereidanian, are spoken outside Georgia, the former by the indigenous Georgians in northwestAzerbaijan, and the latter by the descendants of the 17th-19th centuryGeorgian deportees and migrants inIran.
The obsolescentKizlar-Mozdokian dialect, was spoken in thenorth central Caucasian areas ofKizlyar andMozdok by descendants of those Georgians who fled theOttoman occupation of Georgia in the early 18th century. It was technically a mixture of various Georgian dialects laden withRussian loanwords. Subsequently, the group was largelyRussified and the dialect became extinct.[6]
Judæo-Georgian is a language spoken by theGeorgian Jews. Largely Georgian phonetically, morphologically, and syntactically, and mixed Georgian-Hebrew lexically,[7] it is considered by some not to be a distinct language but rather a dialect of Georgian.[8]
