Romanization of Georgian

Romanization of Georgian is the process of transliterating the Georgian language from the Georgian script into the Latin script.

Georgian national system of romanization

This system, adopted in February 2002 by the State Department of Geodesy and Cartography of Georgia and the Institute of Linguistics, Georgian National Academy of Sciences, establishes a transliteration system of the Georgian letters into Latin letters. The system was already in use, since 1998, on driving licenses. It is also used by BGN and PCGN since 2009, as well as in Google Translate.

Unofficial system of romanization

Despite its popularity this system sometimes leads to ambiguity. The system is mostly used in social networks, forums, chat rooms, etc. The system is greatly influenced by the common QWERTY-derived Georgian keyboard layout that ties each key to each letter in the alphabet.

ISO standard

ISO 9984:1996, "Transliteration of Georgian characters into Latin characters", was last reviewed and confirmed in 2010.
The guiding principles in the standard are:

No digraphs, i.e. one Latin letter per Georgian letter, which is mapped to "Combining comma above right" in Unicode, for aspirated consonants, whereas ejectives are unmarked, e.g.: კ → k, ქ → k̕
Extended characters are mostly Latin letters with caron, with the exception of "g macron" ღ → ḡ. Archaic extended characters are ē, ō, and ẖ.
No capitalization, both as it does not appear in the original script, and to avoid confusion with claimed popular ad hoc transliterations of caron characters as capitals instead.
Transliteration table

Archaic letters are shown on a red background.

Georgian letter	IPA	National system	BGN/PCGN			Unofficial system
ა		a	a	a	a	a	a	a
ბ		b	b	b	b	b	b	b
გ		g	g	g	g	g	g	g
დ		d	d	d	d	d	d	d
ე		e	e	e	e	e	e	e
ვ		v	v	v	v	v	v	v
ზ		z	z	z	z	z	z	z
ჱ			ey	ē	ē	é	ej	ẽ
თ		t	t'	t̕	tʻ	T or t	t	t / t̊
ი		i	i	i	i	i	i	i
კ		k'	k	k	k	k	ǩ	k̉
ლ		l	l	l	l	l	l	l
მ		m	m	m	m	m	m	m
ნ		n	n	n	n	n	n	n
ჲ			j	y	y		j	ĩ
ო		o	o	o	o	o	o	o
პ		p'	p	p	p	p	p̌	p̉
ჟ		zh	zh	ž	ž	J, zh or j	ž	g̃
რ		r	r	r	r	r	r	r
ს		s	s	s	s	s	s	s
ტ		t'	t	t	t	t	t̆	t̉
ჳ				w	w		ŭ	f̃
უ		u	u	u	u	u	u	u
ფ		p	p'	p̕	pʻ	p or f	p	p / p̊
ქ		k	k'	k̕	kʻ	q or k	k	k / k̊
ღ		gh	gh	ḡ	ġ	g, gh or R	ɣ	q̃
ყ		q'	q	q	q	y	q	q
შ		sh	sh	š	š	sh or S	š	x
ჩ		ch	ch'	č̕	čʻ	ch or C	č	c̃
ც		ts	ts'	c̕	cʻ	c or ts	c	c
ძ		dz	dz	j	ż	dz or Z	ʒ	d̃
წ		ts'	ts	c	c	w, c or ts	ʃ	c̉
ჭ		ch'	ch	č	č	W, ch or tch	ʃ̌	j̉
ხ		kh	kh	x	x	x or kh	x	k̃
ჴ			q'	ẖ	x̣		q̌	q̊
ჯ		j	j	ǰ	j	j	ǯ	j
ჰ		h	h	h	h	h	h	h
ჵ				ō	ō		ȯ	h̃

Romanization of Georgian

Georgian national system of romanization

Unofficial system of romanization

ISO standard

Transliteration table