Talk:Georgian language

Georgian Language

I think Georgian language is quite unique in its forms. First, it is a language that has been spoken by ancient Iberians and Colchis tribes. Iberians and Colchis are in fact mysterious ancestors of the people of Georgian in ancient times. According to the Bible, Kartlos was the descendant of Noah’s son Japheth, who is supposed to be the ancestor Georgians. The name Kartuli (Georgian language in Georgian) and Sakartvelo (Georgia in Georgian) comes from the name “Kartlos”. English language has lots of different words for one thing, but in Georgian language there might be one word for many different things. This is also seen in other European languages. For example, Danish, German and other Germanic languages have lot less and simple dictionary than English does. Part of it might be that Georgians used to be mountainous people and vocabulary did not assimilate with other languages.
Soso, Tbilisi, Georgia

I am from Kerala, India. Our language is Malayalam. It was really interesting for me when I found some of the Georgian alphabets are identical while others are similar to our alphabets(mostly old version) although the pronounciation is different. Thanks to Wikipedia.

Justine Kombarakkaran, NM, USA

Gender

I know that Georgian doesn't use masculine and feminine genders. However, according to grammatical gender there are many other types of "noun classes" that are also "genders" in linguistics. I don't know if Georgian has any of these other distinctions, so I was hesitant to simply say that "Georgian nouns have no gender." If anyone can clarify or expand, that'd be appreciated. Isomorphic 18:22, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Good question. AFAIK, Georgian has nothing at all resembling grammatical gender or noun classes -- it's rather like Turkish or Hungarian in that regard. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 13:40, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Contradiction?

Georgian is believed to have separated from Megrelian and Laz in the third millennium BC. Based on the degree of change, linguists (e.g. G.Klimov, T.Gamkrelidze, G.Machavariani) conjecture that the earliest split occurred in the second millennium BC or earlier, separating Svan from the other languages. Megrelian and Laz separated from Georgian roughly a thousand years later.

"Believed" by whom?

The linguists whose names are cited, I'd guess. Anyway, where do you see a "contradiction" here? --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 14:54, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ouch. On rereading, I see the contradiction. This really needs cleanup. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 13:16, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)