Georgian

What Georgian is related to

Its nearest relatives are Mingrelian and Laz, the Zan languages, from which it split about 2,700 years ago according to glottochronological studies. Svan broke away much earlier, perhaps 4,000 years ago. No claimed link between Kartvelian and any other family is accepted in mainstream linguistics. Standard Georgian rests on the Kartlian dialect, and its influence keeps the 18 or more dialects mutually intelligible.

Which texts mark each stage

A Roman grammarian of the 2nd century, Marcus Cornelius Fronto, gives the first reference to the language. The oldest direct evidence is 5th-century inscriptions and palimpsests, and the oldest surviving literary work is the Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik, from the same century. The conversion of the Kingdom of Iberia in the mid-4th century replaced Aramaic as the literary language. Shota Rustaveli wrote the epic The Knight in the Panther's Skin in the Middle Georgian period, in the 12th century, and in 1629 Nikoloz Cholokashvili produced the first printed books partly in Georgian, for Catholic missionaries.

Why Mkhedruli has no capital letters

Georgian has three scripts. Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri serve together as upper and lower case in the writings of the Georgian Orthodox Church, where the pair is called Khutsuri, the priest alphabet. Mkhedruli, now almost completely dominant, has a single case. For headings and inscriptions, letters can be redrawn to one height on the baseline, an effect called Mtavruli. The letters of Mkhedruli map closely onto the sounds of the language, and six more letters, obsolete in Georgian, survive in the alphabets of Mingrelian, Laz and Svan.

How one root yields many words

From the root kart come Kartveli, a Georgian person, Kartuli, the language, and Sakartvelo, the country. Verbs can carry up to eight morphemes and mark several persons at once, and nouns have seven cases but no gender and no articles. Counting goes by twenties: 93 is literally four times twenty plus thirteen.