THE UNIQUE GEORGIAN LANGUAGE The Georgian alphabet is one of the 14 alphabets of the world. It has beautiful and extraordinary letters. The words sound soft and strange, but some foreigners think that they also sound strong and harsh. Georgian is written in its own unique script that was once described as one of the most beautifully written languages in the world. The ancient Georgian alphabet has been granted the national status of cultural heritage. The Georgian alphabet is a phonemic orthography. Georgian has been written in a variety of scripts over its history. ANBANI - is derived from the names of the first two letters of the three Georgian lphabets: ASOMTAVRULI, NUSKHURI, MKHEDRULI. The Asomtavruli alphabet is known also as Mrgvlovani (“rounded”). Examples of it are still preserved in monumental inscriptions, such as those of the
Georgian church in Bethlehem (near Jerusalem, 430) and the church of Bolnisi Sioni near Tbilisi (4th-5th centuries). The Nuskhuri (“minuscule”) or Kutkhovani (“squared”) script first appeared in the ninth century. Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri, collectively known as Khutsuri (“church script”), were used together to write religious manuscripts, with the Asomtavruli serving as capital letters. The modern alphabet, called Mkhedruli (“secular” or “military writing”), first appeared in the eleventh century. It was used for non-religious purposes up until the eighteenth century, when it was completely replaced by Khutsuri. Some aspects of the Georgian language are easy to learn: language has no grammatical gender, no capital letters, no diphthongs and each letter represents one sound.
aa bb gg dd ee vv zz Tt i i kk ll
mm n n oo p p J zh r r s s t t’ uu f ph q q
R gh y gkh S sh C ch c ts Z dz w ts’ W tch x kh j j h
h
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