Kartvelian languages
The Kartvelian languages, also known as South Caucasian or Kartvelic languages, are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Georgia. There are approximately 5 million Georgian language speakers worldwide. The Kartvelian family has no known relation to any other language family, making it one of the world's primary language families.
The most widely spoken Kartvelian language is the standard Georgian. The earliest written source in any Kartvelian language is an Old Georgian inscription at the once-existing Georgian monastery near Bethlehem, dated to. Georgian scripts are used to write all Kartvelian languages.
Status
Georgian is the official language of Georgia and serves as its main language for literary and business use. It is written with an original and distinctive alphabet, and the oldest surviving literary text dates from the 5th century AD. The old Georgian script seems to have been distinct from every other language, but their alphabetical order largely corresponds to the Greek alphabet, with the exception of letters denoting uniquely Georgian sounds, which are grouped at the end.Mingrelian has been written with the Georgian alphabet since 1864, especially in the period from 1930 to 1938, when the Mingrelians had some cultural autonomy, and after 1989.
The Laz language was written mainly between 1927 and 1937, and then in Turkey using the Latin alphabet. Laz is endangered as its speakers are shifting to Turkish.
Classification
The Kartvelian language family consists of four closely related languages:- Svan, with approximately 35,000–40,000 native speakers in Georgia, mainly in the northwestern mountainous region of Svaneti and the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia
- Georgian-Zan
- * Georgian with approximately 4 million native speakers, mainly in Georgia. There are Georgian-speaking communities in Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel, and EU countries, but the current number and distribution of them are unknown.
- ** Judaeo-Georgian with some 85,000 speakers, is the only Kartvelian Jewish dialect, its status being the subject of debate among scholars.
- * Zan
- ** Mingrelian, with some 500,000 native speakers in 1989, mainly in the western regions of Georgia, namely Samegrelo and Abkhazia. The number of Mingrelian speakers in Abkhazia was very strongly affected by the war with Georgia in the 1990s which resulted in the expulsion and flight of the ethnic Georgian population, the majority of which were Mingrelians. Nevertheless, Georgians in Abkhazia make up 18% of the population, in Gali district 98.2%. The Mingrelians displaced from Abkhazia are scattered elsewhere in the Georgian government territory, with dense clusters in Tbilisi and Zugdidi.
- ** Laz, with 22,000 native speakers in 1980, mostly in the Black Sea littoral area of northeast Turkey, and with some 2,000 in Adjara, Georgia.
Genealogical tree
The connection between these languages was first reported in linguistic literature by Johann Anton Güldenstädt in his 1773 classification of the languages of the Caucasus, and later proven by G. Rosen, Marie-Félicité Brosset, Franz Bopp and others during the 1840s. Zan is the branch that contains the Mingrelian and Laz languages.
On the basis of glottochronological analysis, Georgi Klimov dates the split of the Proto-Kartvelian into Svan and Proto-Georgian-Zan to the 19th century BC, and the further division into Georgian and Zan to the 8th century BC, although with the reservation that such dating is very preliminary and substantial further study is required. A 2023 study employing Bayesian linguistic phylogenetics in conjunction with archaeological, ethnoecological, and human population genetic data suggests a substantially earlier separation between Svan and the Karto-Zan languages. This multidisciplinary approach dates the divergence to the Early Copper Age, approximately 7600 years before present.
According to this study it is highly likely that Proto-Karto-Zan prior to its split into Georgian and Zan was spoken by pre-Kura-Araxes and Kura-Araxes farmers that thrived in the watershed of Mtkvari River during the Copper and Bronze Ages.
Higher-level connections
No relationship with other languages, including Northwest Caucasian and/or Northeast Caucasian, has been demonstrated so far. There have been numerous attempts to link Kartvelian languages to other language families, such as the proposed Nostratic family, but these have fallen out of favor. Certain grammatical similarities with Basque, especially in the case system, have often been pointed out. However, the hypothesis of a relationship, which also tends to link the Caucasian languages with other non-Indo-European and non-Semitic languages of the Near East of ancient times, is generally considered to lack conclusive evidence. Any similarities to other linguistic phyla may be due to areal influences. Heavy borrowing in both directions has been observed; therefore, it is likely that certain grammatical features have been influenced as well.Phonetics and phonology
Regular correspondences
| Proto-Kartv. | Geo. | Zan | Svan | |
| Voiced stops | *ბ | b | b | b |
| Voiced stops | *დ | d | d | d |
| Voiced stops | *გ | g | g | g / ǯ / |
| Voiced affricates | *ძ | ʒ | ʒ | ʒ / z / |
| Voiced affricates | *ძ₁ | ʒ | ǯ | ǯ / ž / |
| Voiced affricates | *ჯ | ǯ | ǯg / ʒg / | ǯg / sg / |
| Voiced fricatives | *ზ | z | z | z |
| Voiced fricatives | *ზ₁ | z | ž | ž |
| Voiced fricatives | *ღ | ɣ | ɣ | ɣ |
| Voiced fricatives | *უ̂ | v | v | w |
| Ejective stops | *პ | ṗ | ṗ | ṗ |
| Ejective stops | *ტ | ṭ | ṭ | ṭ |
| Ejective stops | *კ | ḳ | ḳ | ḳ / č' / |
| Ejective stops | *ყ | qʼ | qʼ / ʔ / ḳ / / | qʼ |
| Ejective affr. | *წ | ċ | ċ | ċ |
| Ejective affr. | *წ₁ | ċ | čʼ | čʼ |
| Ejective affr. | *ტʼ | ċ | čʼ | h |
| Ejective affr. | *ჭ | čʼ | čʼḳ / ċḳ / | čʼḳ / šḳ / |
| Voiceless stops and affr. | *ფ | p | p | p |
| Voiceless stops and affr. | *თ | t | t | t |
| Voiceless stops and affr. | *ც | c | c | c |
| Voiceless stops and affr. | *ც₁ | c | č | č |
| Voiceless stops and affr. | *ჩ | č | čk | čk / šg / |
| Voiceless stops and affr. | *ქ | k | k | k / č / |
| Voiceless stops and affr. | *ჴ | x | x | q |
| Voiceless fricatives | *ხ | x | x | x |
| Voiceless fricatives | *შ | š | šk / sk / | šg / sg / |
| Voiceless fricatives | *ს | s | s | s |
| Voiceless fricatives | *ს₁ | s | š | š |
| Voiceless fricatives | *ლʿ | s | ∅ | l |
| Liquids | *ლ | l | l | l |
| Liquids | *რ | r | r | r |
| Nasals | *მ | m | m | m |
| Nasals | *ნ | n | n | n |
Grammar
Noun classification
The Kartvelian languages have traces of grammatical gender based on animacy, classifying objects as intelligent and unintelligent beings.Verb
Kartvelian verbs can indicate one, two, or three grammatical persons. A performer of an action is called the subject and affected persons are objects. The person may be singular or plural. According to the number of persons, the verbs are classified as unipersonal, bipersonal or tripersonal.- Unipersonal verbs have only a subject and so are always intransitive.
- Bipersonal verbs have a subject and one object, which can be direct or indirect. The verb is:
- *transitive when the object is direct;
- *intransitive if the object is indirect.
- Tripersonal verbs have one subject and both direct and indirect objects and are ditransitive.
By means of special markers Kartvelian verbs can indicate four kinds of action intentionality :
- subjective—shows that the action is intended for oneself,
- objective—the action is intended for another person,
- objective-passive—the action is intended for another person and at the same time indicating the passiveness of subject,
- neutral—neutral with respect to intention.
| Version | Mingrelian | Laz | Georgian | Svan |
| Subjective | -i- | -i- | -i- | -i- |
| Objective | -u- | -u- | -u- | -o- |
| Objective-passive | -a- | -a- | -e- | -e- |
| Neutral | -o-/-a- | -o- | -a- | -a- |
Case patterns
Subject, direct object and indirect object are coded by the three core-cases, namely ergative, nominative and dative. Although the term "ergative" is traditional, strictly speaking no Kartvelian language features ergative alignment. Rather, they display a mixture of nominative-accusative and active alignment, depending on two factors:- the class to which the verb belongs, based on its morphological and syntactic properties ;
- the series to which the tense/aspect/mood form belongs.
Laz has extended the case marking of Series II to Series I, thus featuring active alignment regardless of tense.
Mingrelian, on the other hand, has extended the use of the ergative to all intransitive verbs, becoming fully accusative in all series, although with different case marking.