Kartvelian languages

Language family indigenous to the South Caucasus

The Kartvelian languages (/kɑːrtˈvɛliən, -ˈviːl-/ kart-VEL-ee-ən, -⁠VEEL-; Georgian: ქართველური ენები, romanized: kartveluri enebi; also known as South Caucasian, Kartvelic, and Iberian languages^[1]) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Georgia. There are approximately 5 million Georgian language speakers worldwide, with large groups in Russia, Iran, the United States, the European Union, Israel,^[2] and northeastern Turkey.^[3] The Kartvelian family has no known relation to any other language family, making it one of the world's primary language families.^[4]

The most widely spoken of these languages is Georgian. The earliest literary source in any Kartvelian language is the Old Georgian Bir el Qutt inscriptions, written in ancient Georgian Asomtavruli script at the once-existing Georgian monastery near Bethlehem,^[5] dated to c. 430 AD.^[6] Georgian scripts are used to write all Kartvelian languages.

Social and cultural status

Georgian is the official language of Georgia (spoken by 90% of the population) 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 derived from the Greek script,^[7] but this is not certain.

Mingrelian has been written with the Georgian alphabet since 1864, especially in the period from 1930 to 1938, when the Mingrelians enjoyed some cultural autonomy, and after 1989.

The Laz language was written mainly between 1927 and 1937, and now again in Turkey using the Latin alphabet. Laz, however, is disappearing as its speakers are integrating into mainstream Turkish society.

Classification

The Kartvelian language family consists of four closely related languages:

• Svan (ლუშნუ ნინ, lušnu nin), 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 (also called Karto-Zan)
  • Georgian (ქართული ენა, kartuli ena) 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 (ყივრული ენა, kivruli ena) with some 85,000 speakers, is the only Kartvelian Jewish dialect, its status being the subject of debate among scholars.^[8]
  • Zan (also called Colchian)
    • Mingrelian (მარგალური ნინა, margaluri nina), with some 500,000 native speakers in 1989, mainly in the western regions of Georgia, namely Samegrelo and Abkhazia (at present in Gali district only). 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 (mostly Mingrelians) make up 18% of the population, in Gali district 98.2%.^[9] The Mingrelians displaced from Abkhazia are scattered elsewhere in the Georgian government territory, with dense clusters in Tbilisi and Zugdidi.
    • Laz (ლაზური ნენა, lazuri nena), 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 (Proto-Karto-Zan) to the 19th century BC,^[10][11] and the further division into Georgian and Zan to the 8th century BC,^[11] although with the reservation that such dating is very preliminary and substantial further study is required.^[10] 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.^[12]According to this study it is highly likely that Proto-Karto-Zan (i.e. Proto-Georgian-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 (Kura) 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.^[7] 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 favour.^[13] 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.^[7] Any similarities to other linguistic phyla may be due to areal influences. Heavy borrowing in both directions (i.e. from North Caucasian to Kartvelian and vice versa) has been observed; therefore, it is likely that certain grammatical features have been influenced as well.

Phonetics and phonology

Regular correspondences

Grammar

Noun classification

The Kartvelian languages have grammatical gender based on animacy, classifying objects as intelligent ("who"-class) and unintelligent ("what"-class) beings.

Declension

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 (direct or indirect). 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.

Subjects and objects are indicated with special affixes.

By means of special markers Kartvelian verbs can indicate four kinds of action intentionality ("version"):

• 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.

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,^[16] depending on two factors:

• the class to which the verb belongs, based on its morphological and syntactic properties (class 1 including all transitive verbs, while intransitive verbs are divided between class 2 and 3);
• the series to which the tense/aspect/mood form (traditionally known as screeve) belongs.

Georgian and Svan have accusative alignment in the Present series (often termed Series I) and active alignment in the Aorist series (Series II).

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.

Examples from inherited lexicon

See also

• Proto-Kartvelian language

Citations

1. Boeder (2002), p. 3
2. "Israel". Ethnologue.
3. "Browse by Language Family". Ethnologue.
4. Dalby (2002), p. 38
5. Lang (1966), p. 154
6. Hewitt (1995), p. 4.
7. Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition (1986): Macropedia, "Languages of the World", see section titled "Caucasian languages".
8. Judeo-Georgian at Glottolog
9. "Государственный комитет Республики Абхазия по статистике". ugsra.org. Archived from the original on 2020-07-28. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
10. Klimov (1998b), p. 14
11. Klimov (1994), p. 91
12. Gavashelishvili, A; et al. (2023), "The time and place of origin of South Caucasian languages: insights into past human societies, ecosystems and human population genetics", Scientific Reports, 13 (21133), doi:10.1038/s41598-023-45500-w, PMC 10689496
13. Campbell, Lyle (2008). Language classification : history and method. William John Poser. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 243–264. ISBN 978-0-511-41450-3. OCLC 263493207.
14. Fähnrich (2002), p. 5
15. Fähnrich (2002), p. 5-6
16. Testelets (2020), pp. 513–516
17. Harris (1985), p. 46
18. Harris (1985), p. 55
19. Harris (1985), p. 58

General references

• Boeder, Winfried (1979). "Ergative syntax and morphology in language change: the South Caucasian languages". In Plank, Frans (ed.). Ergativity: towards a theory of grammatical relations. London: Academic Press. pp. 435–480. ISBN 9780125581509.
• Boeder, Winfried (2002). "Speech and thought representation in the Kartvelian (South Caucasian) languages". In Güldemann, Tom; von Roncador, Manfred (eds.). Reported Discourse. A Meeting-Ground of Different Linguistic Domains. Typological Studies in Language, vol. 52. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. pp. 3–48. ISBN 9789027229588.
• Boeder, Winfried (2005). "The South Caucasian languages". Lingua. 115 (1–2): 5–89. doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2003.06.002.
• Dalby, A. (2002). Language in Danger; The Loss of Linguistic Diversity and the Threat to Our Future. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231129008.
• Deeters, Gerhard (1930). Das kharthwelische Verbum: vergleichende Darstellung des Verbalbaus der südkaukasischen Sprachen (in German). Leipzig: Markert und Petters. OCLC 751319764.
• Delshad, Farshid (2010). Georgica et Irano-Semitica (in German). Wiesbaden: Deutscher Wissenschaftsverlag. ISBN 978-3868880045.
• Fähnrich, Heinz (2002). Kartwelische Wortschatzstudien (in German). Jena: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität.
• Fähnrich, Heinz (2007). Kartwelisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-47-42032-3.
• Fähnrich, Heinz (2008). Kartwelsprachen. Altgeorgisch, Neugeorgisch, Mingrelisch, Lasisch, Swanisch (in German). Wiesbaden: Reichert. ISBN 978-3-89500-653-1.
• Fähnrich, Heinz (2016). Die Kartwelier. Grundsprache, Kultur, Lebensraum (in German). Wiesbaden: Reichert. ISBN 978-3-95490-192-0.
• Gamkrelidze, Thomas (1966). "A Typology of Common Kartvelian". Language. 42 (1): 69–83. doi:10.2307/411601. JSTOR 411601.
• Gamkrelidze, Thomas; Ivanov, Vjaceslav V. (1995). Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and a Proto-Culture. 2 vols. Translated by Jakobson, Roman. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110147285.
• Harris, Alice C. (1985). Diachronic syntax: the Kartvelian case. London: Academic Press. ISBN 978-90-04-36508-7.
• Harris, Alice C., ed. (1991). The Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus, Vol.1: The Kartvelian languages. Delmar, New York: Caravan Books.
• Hewitt, B. George (1995). Georgian: A Structural Reference Grammar. Amerstdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-90-272-3802-3.
• Kajaia, Otar (2001). Megrul-kartuli leksiḳoni [Megrelian-Georgian dictionary] (in Georgian). Vol. 1. Tbilisi.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Kartozia, Guram (2005). The Laz language and its place in the system of Kartvelian languages (in Georgian). Tbilisi: Nekeri.
• Klimov, Georgij (1964). Этимологический словарь картвельских языков [Etymological Dictionary of Kartvelian Languages] (in Russian). Moscow.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Klimov, Georgij (1994). Einführung in die kaukasische Sprachwissenschaft [Introduction to Caucasian linguistics] (in German). Translated by Gippert, Jost. Hamburg: Buske. ISBN 9783875480603.
• Klimov, Georgij (1998). Etymological Dictionary of the Kartvelian Languages. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110156584.
• Klimov, Georgij (1998). Languages of the World: Caucasian languages (in Russian). Moscow: Academia.
• Lang, David Marshall (1966). The Georgians. Ancient people and places No. 51. New York: Praeger. ISBN 9780500020494.
• Ruhlen, M. (1987). A Guide to the World's Languages, Vol. 1: Classification. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Testelets, Yakov G. (2020). "Kartvelian (South Caucasian) Languages". In Polinsky, Maria (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus. Oxford Handbooks Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190690694.
• Tuite, K. (1998). Kartvelian Morphosyntax. Number agreement and morphosyntactic orientation in the South Caucasian languages. Studies in Caucasian Linguistics, 12. Munich: LINCOM Europa.

External links

• Lazuri Nena – The Language of the Laz by Silvia Kutscher.
• Kartvelian Languages Department of the Arnold Chikobava Institute of Linguistics, Georgian Academy of Sciences
• Arthur Holmer, The Iberian-Caucasian Connection in a Typological Perspective
• The rise and fall and revival of the Ibero-Caucasian hypothesis by Kevin Tuite (Université de Montréal).