Georgian is the most widely spoken Kartvelian language and the official language of Georgia, with about 3.76 million first-language speakers concentrated in the South Caucasus. Its own Georgian script emerged in the mid-fourth century alongside the Christianization of Georgia, passing through Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri phases before the rounded Mkhedruli form became the dominant modern hand.
Facts
ISO 639-3 Code Speaker Count2020 first-language figure; roughly 150,000 additional second-language speakers as of 2014. Attested From (Year)5th century AD; the oldest surviving literary text, the Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik, dates to this century. RegionGeorgia (official); South Caucasus 2 Browse and compare
Difficulty for an English Speaker Classification
Language Kind Official Status Connections
In Family
Source Wikipedia: Georgian Language
Written In
Source Wikipedia: Georgian Language
In the Other Atlases
Cases Where Used
Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.
Original Language Of
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Found In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Sources
1. Glottolog: Georgian (Glottolog languoid nucl1302)
GlottologEndangerment, AES statusQuote, Endangerment, AES status
AES status: not endangered
2. Wikipedia: Georgian Language
WikipediaArticle text
The emergence of Georgian as a written language appears to have been the result of the Christianization of the Kingdom of Iberia in the mid-4th century, which led to the replacement of Aramaic as the literary language.
infobox IPA
kartuli ena
Script origin, 5th century
the 5th century
Lead section
Georgian (ქართული ენა, kartuli ena, pronounced [ˈkʰäɾt̪ʰuli ˈe̞n̪ä]) is the most widely spoken Kartvelian language.
- In Family: Kartvelian, Introduction
View the Source 3. WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures): Georgian / Order of Subject, Object and Verb (WALS datapoint)
WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures)Datapoint pageQuote, Datapoint page
Feature: Order of Subject, Object and Verb by Matthew S. Dryer Value: SOV
4. WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures): Georgian / Tone (WALS datapoint)
WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures)Datapoint pageQuote, Datapoint page
Feature: Tone by Ian Maddieson Value: No tones
5. Effective Language Learning: Language Difficulty Ranking
Effective Language LearningForeign Service Institute categories listQuote, Foreign Service Institute categories list
Category IV: 44 weeks (1100 hours) Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English Albanian Amharic Armenian Azerbaijani Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Burmese Croatian Czech * Estonian * Finnish * Georgian
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