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34-542: Bolnisi Sioni ( Georgian : ბოლნისის სიონი ) or Bolnisi Sioni Cathedral is a Georgian Orthodox basilica in the Bolnisi village of Bolnisi District , Georgia. The cathedral was built in 478–493. It is the oldest extant church building in Georgia. Bishop David was the overseeing church leader for the construction of Bolnisi Sioni. Bolnisi Sioni Cathedral is known for its Georgian inscriptions . These are one of

68-466: A split-ergative morphosyntactic system . Verbs are marked for aspect , evidentiality and "version" . Svan retains the voiceless aspirated uvular plosive , /qʰ/ , and the glides /w/ and /j/ . It has a larger vowel inventory than Georgian; the Upper Bal dialect of Svan has the most vowels of any South-Caucasian language, having both long and short versions of /a ɛ i ɔ u æ ø y/ plus /ə eː/ ,

102-457: A vigesimal numeric system like Basque and (partially) French . Numbers greater than 20 and less than 100 are described as the sum of the greatest possible multiple of 20 plus the remainder. For example, "93" literally translates as 'four times twenty plus thirteen' ( ოთხმოცდაცამეტი , otkhmotsdatsamet’i ). One of the most important Georgian dictionaries is the Explanatory dictionary of

136-569: A Roman grammarian from the 2nd century AD. The first direct attestations of the language are inscriptions and palimpsests dating to the 5th century, and the oldest surviving literary work is the 5th century Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik by Iakob Tsurtaveli . The emergence of Georgian as a written language appears to have been the result of the Christianization of Georgia in the mid-4th century, which led to

170-665: A capital-like effect called Mtavruli for titles and inscriptions. Georgian is an agglutinative language with a complex verb structure that can include up to eight morphemes , exhibiting polypersonalism . The language has seven noun cases and employs a left-branching structure with adjectives preceding nouns and postpositions instead of prepositions. Georgian lacks grammatical gender and articles, with definite meanings established through context. Georgian's rich derivation system allows for extensive noun and verb formation from roots, with many words featuring initial consonant clusters. The Georgian writing system has evolved from ancient scripts to

204-490: A ri means 'friend'; megobrebi ( megob Ø rebi ) means 'friends', with the loss of a in the last syllable of the word stem. Georgian has seven noun cases: nominative , ergative , dative , genitive , instrumental , adverbial and vocative . An interesting feature of Georgian is that, while the subject of a sentence is generally in the nominative case and the object is in the accusative case (or dative), one can find this reversed in many situations (this depends mainly on

238-399: A row, as may be seen in words like გვფრცქვნ ი gvprtskvni 'you peel us' and მწვრთნ ელი mts’vrtneli 'trainer'. Vicenik has observed that Georgian vowels following ejective stops have creaky voice and suggests this may be one cue distinguishing ejectives from their aspirated and voiced counterparts. Georgian has been written in a variety of scripts over its history. Currently

272-432: A total of 18 vowels (Georgian, by contrast, has just five). Its morphology is less regular than that of the other three sister languages, and there are notable differences in conjugation . Svan is the native language of fewer than 30,000 Svans (15,000 of whom are Upper Svan dialect speakers and 12,000 are Lower Svan), living in the mountains of Svaneti , i.e. in the districts of Mestia and Lentekhi of Georgia, along

306-589: A word. Georgian vowels in non-initial syllables are pronounced with a shorter duration compared to vowels in initial syllables. long polysyllabic words may have a secondary stress on their third or fourth syllable. Georgian contains many "harmonic clusters" involving two consonants of a similar type (voiced, aspirated, or ejective) that are pronounced with only a single release; e.g. ბგ ერა bgera 'sound', ცხ ოვრება tskhovreba 'life', and წყ ალი ts’q’ali 'water'. There are also frequent consonant clusters , sometimes involving more than six consonants in

340-494: Is because syllables in the language often begin with two consonants. Recordings are available on the relevant Wiktionary entries, linked to below. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights : Svan language Svan ( ლუშნუ ნინ lušnu nin ; Georgian : სვანური ენა , romanized : svanuri ena ) is a Kartvelian language spoken in the western Georgian region of Svaneti primarily by

374-532: Is considered endangered, as proficiency in it among young people is limited. Svan is the most differentiated member of the four South-Caucasian languages and is believed to have split off in the 2nd millennium BC or earlier, about one thousand years before Georgian and Zan split from each other. Soviet ethnologist Evdokia Kozhevnikova extensively documented the Svan language during her fieldwork in Svaneti in

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408-520: Is most closely related to the Zan languages ( Megrelian and Laz ) and more distantly to Svan . Georgian has various dialects , with standard Georgian based on the Kartlian dialect, and all dialects are mutually intelligible. The history of Georgian spans from Early Old Georgian in the 5th century, to Modern Georgian today. Its development as a written language began with the Christianization of Georgia in

442-1003: Is rather light, and in fact Georgian transliterates the tenuis stops in foreign words and names with the ejectives. The coronal occlusives ( /tʰ tʼ d n/ , not necessarily affricates) are variously described as apical dental, laminal alveolar, and "dental". Per Canepari, the main realizations of the vowels are [ i ], [ e̞ ], [ ä ], [ o̞ ], [ u ]. Aronson describes their realizations as [ i̞ ], [ e̞ ], [ ä ] (but "slightly fronted"), [ o̞ ], [ u̞ ]. Shosted transcribed one speaker's pronunciation more-or-less consistently with [ i ], [ ɛ ], [ ɑ ], [ ɔ ], [ u ]. Allophonically, [ ə ] may be inserted to break up consonant clusters, as in /dɡas/ [dəɡäs] . In casual speech, /iV, Vi/ sequences can be realized phonetically as [jV~i̯V, Vj~Vi̯]. Phrase-final unstressed vowels may sometimes be partially reduced. Prosody in Georgian involves stress, intonation, and rhythm. Stress

476-401: Is very weak, and linguists disagree as to where stress occurs in words. Jun, Vicenik, and Lofstedt have proposed that Georgian stress and intonation are the result of pitch accents on the first syllable of a word and near the end of a phrase. According to Borise, Georgian has fixed initial word-level stress cued primarily by greater syllable duration and intensity of the initial syllable of

510-458: The Dittionario giorgiano e italiano . These were meant to help western Catholic missionaries learn Georgian for evangelical purposes. On the left are IPA symbols, and on the right are the corresponding letters of the modern Georgian alphabet, which is essentially phonemic. Former /qʰ/ ( ჴ ) has merged with /x/ ( ხ ), leaving only the latter. The glottalization of the ejectives

544-499: The Mkhedruli script is almost completely dominant; the others are used mostly in religious documents and architecture. Mkhedruli has 33 letters in common use; a half dozen more are obsolete in Georgian, though still used in other alphabets, like Mingrelian, Laz, and Svan. The letters of Mkhedruli correspond closely to the phonemes of the Georgian language. According to the traditional account written down by Leonti Mroveli in

578-577: The Enguri , Tskhenistsqali and Kodori rivers. Some Svan speakers live in the Kodori Valley of the de facto independent republic of Abkhazia . Although conditions there make it difficult to reliably establish their numbers, there are only an estimated 2,500 Svan individuals living there. The language is used in familiar and casual social communication. It has no written standard or official status. Most speakers also speak Georgian . The language

612-516: The Georgian Orthodox Church and together are called Khutsuri 'priest alphabet'. In Mkhedruli , there is no case. Sometimes, however, a capital-like effect, called Mtavruli ('title' or 'heading'), is achieved by modifying the letters so that their vertical sizes are identical and they rest on the baseline with no descenders. These capital-like letters are often used in page headings, chapter titles, monumental inscriptions, and

646-457: The Kartlian dialect. Over the centuries, it has exerted a strong influence on the other dialects. As a result, they are all, generally, mutually intelligible with standard Georgian, and with one another. The history of the Georgian language is conventionally divided into the following phases: The earliest extant references to Georgian are found in the writings of Marcus Cornelius Fronto ,

680-586: The Svan people . With its speakers variously estimated to be between 30,000 and 80,000, the UNESCO designates Svan as a "definitely endangered language ". It is of particular interest because it has retained many features that have been lost in the other Kartvelian languages. Like all languages of the Caucasian language family, Svan has a large number of consonants. It has agreement between subject and object, and

714-457: The 11th century, the first Georgian script was created by the first ruler of the Kingdom of Iberia , Pharnavaz , in the 3rd century BC. The first examples of a Georgian script date from the 5th century AD. There are now three Georgian scripts, called Asomtavruli 'capitals', Nuskhuri 'small letters', and Mkhedruli . The first two are used together as upper and lower case in the writings of

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748-630: The 1920s and 1930s. The Svan language is divided into the following dialects and subdialects: The consonant inventory of Svan is more or less the same as that of Old Georgian . That is, compared to Modern Georgian, it also has /j/ , /q/ and /w/ , but the labiodental fricative only appears as an allophone of /w/ in the Ln dialect. Furthermore, the uvular consonants /q/ and /q’/  are realized as affricates, i.e. [q͡χ]  and [q͡χʼ] . The vowel inventory of Svan varies between different dialects. For instance, Proto-Svan phonemic long vowels occur in

782-548: The 4th century. Georgian phonology features a rich consonant system, including aspirated, voiced, and ejective stops , affricates , and fricatives . Its vowel system consists of five vowels with varying realizations. Georgian prosody involves weak stress, with disagreements among linguists on its placement. The language's phonotactics include complex consonant clusters and harmonic clusters. The Mkhedruli script , dominant in modern usage, corresponds closely to Georgian phonemes and has no case distinction, though it employs

816-568: The Georgian language ( ქართული ენის განმარტებითი ლექსიკონი ). It consists of eight volumes and about 115,000 words. It was produced between 1950 and 1964, by a team of linguists under the direction of Arnold Chikobava . Georgian has a word derivation system, which allows the derivation of nouns from verb roots both with prefixes and suffixes, for example: It is also possible to derive verbs from nouns: Likewise, verbs can be derived from adjectives, for example: In Georgian many nouns and adjectives begin with two or more contiguous consonants. This

850-552: The Upper Bal, Cholur and Lashkh dialects, but have been lost in the Lentekh and Lower Bal dialects. Compared to Georgian, Svan also have a central or back unrounded high vowel /ə/ (realized as [ɯ]~[ɨ] ), the low front /æ/ (except for Lashkh) and the front rounded vowels /œ/ and /y/ (also except for Lashkh). The front rounded vowels are often realized as diphthongs [we]  and [wi] and are therefore sometimes not treated as separate phonemes. The alphabet, illustrated above,

884-403: The character of the verb). This is called the dative construction . In the past tense of the transitive verbs, and in the present tense of the verb "to know", the subject is in the ergative case. Georgian has a rich word-derivation system. By using a root, and adding some definite prefixes and suffixes, one can derive many nouns and adjectives from the root. For example, from the root - kart -,

918-458: The current Mkhedruli, used for most purposes. The language has a robust grammatical framework with unique features such as syncope in morphophonology and a left-branching syntax. Georgian's vocabulary is highly derivational, allowing for diverse word formations, while its numeric system is vigesimal. No claimed genetic links between the Kartvelian languages and any other language family in

952-498: The following words can be derived: Kart veli ('a Georgian person'), Kart uli ('the Georgian language') and Sa kart velo ('the country of Georgia'). Most Georgian surnames end in - dze 'son' (Western Georgia), - shvili 'child' (Eastern Georgia), - ia (Western Georgia, Samegrelo ), - ani (Western Georgia, Svaneti ), - uri (Eastern Georgia), etc. The ending - eli is a particle of nobility, comparable to French de , Dutch van , German von or Polish - ski . Georgian has

986-498: The like. This is the Georgian standard keyboard layout. The standard Windows keyboard is essentially that of manual typewriters . Georgian is an agglutinative language . Certain prefixes and suffixes can be joined in order to build a verb. In some cases, one verb can have up to eight different morphemes in it at the same time. An example is ageshenebinat ('you [all] should've built [it]'). The verb can be broken down to parts: a-g-e-shen-eb-in-a-t . Each morpheme here contributes to

1020-472: The meaning of the verb tense or the person who has performed the verb. The verb conjugation also exhibits polypersonalism ; a verb may potentially include morphemes representing both the subject and the object. In Georgian morphophonology , syncope is a common phenomenon. When a suffix (especially the plural suffix - eb -) is attached to a word that has either of the vowels a or e in the last syllable, this vowel is, in most words, lost. For example, megob

1054-475: The oldest historical documents of the Georgian alphabet . This church is the first Georgian building to have a completion date on the exterior. Bolnisi Sioni’s decorative scheme was a Sasanian style . The southern and central parts of the church are adorned with curling vine scrolls, arabesques, and foliate motifs. Uniform masonry blocks were used to build on to the original building’s late antiquity remnants on

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1088-640: The replacement of Aramaic as the literary language . By the 11th century, Old Georgian had developed into Middle Georgian. The most famous work of this period is the epic poem The Knight in the Panther's Skin , written by Shota Rustaveli in the 12th century. In 1629, a certain Nikoloz Cholokashvili authored the first printed books written (partially) in Georgian, the Alphabetum Ibericum sive Georgianum cum Oratione and

1122-489: The southern façade. The country of Georgia was in contact with Persia during the time of Bolnisi Sioni’s construction. Evidence of this is in the decoration of the building. The sculpture and embellishments of Bolnisi Sioni and other surrounding Georgian churches are influenced from Iranian, Armenian, and Near Eastern art and architecture. The hunting depictions and sculpture are similar to Iranian 4th and 5th century art and architecture. Georgian language Georgian

1156-399: The world are accepted in mainstream linguistics. Among the Kartvelian languages, Georgian is most closely related to the so-called Zan languages ( Megrelian and Laz ); glottochronological studies indicate that it split from the latter approximately 2700 years ago. Svan is a more distant relative that split off much earlier, perhaps 4000 years ago. Standard Georgian is largely based on

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