Georgian ( ქართული ენა , kartuli ena , pronounced [ˈkʰartʰuli ˈena] ) is the most widely spoken Kartvelian language ; it serves as the literary language or lingua franca for speakers of related languages. It is the official language of Georgia and the native or primary language of 88% of its population. Its speakers today amount to approximately 3.8 million. Georgian is written with its own unique Georgian scripts , alphabetical systems of unclear origin.
56-563: Kutaisi ( / k uː ˈ t aɪ s iː / koo- TY -see , Georgian : ქუთაისი pronounced [ˈkʰutʰaisi] ) is a city in the Imereti region of the Republic of Georgia . One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, it is the third-most populous city in Georgia after Tbilisi and Batumi . It lies 221 kilometres (137 miles) west of Tbilisi, on
112-457: 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
168-555: A Christian girl and using her blood for allegedly Jewish religious purposes. The trial took place at the Kutaisi Circuit Court, which had been established in 1868 as one of several new courts in the Caucasus created by Tsar Alexander II.'s Judicial Reform . After a ten-day trial, with nearly 70 witnesses, the nine defendants were acquitted as the defense lawyers Petr Aleksandrov, Lev Kupernik and Moisei Kikodze convinced
224-569: 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
280-665: 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
336-557: A great tradition in sports, with many famous sports clubs. FC Torpedo Kutaisi has participated on the highest level of the Soviet Union football league. After Georgia achieved independence, it won many domestic and international titles. RC AIA Kutaisi won the Soviet Championship several times in rugby , and after independence, national championships and cups. The women's football club FC Martve takes part at
392-610: A new, fully automated manufacturing line in Kutaisi. With a total output of 500 MW per year it is the largest solar panel factory under one roof in Europe. During the same year Changan Automobile announced plans to construct an electric car factory in Kutaisi, with an annual production capacity of up to 40,000 vehicles. The company plans to export annually about 20,000 cars to the EU. The factory plans to employ about 3,000 people. Kutaisi has
448-490: 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
504-399: 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
560-399: A very diverse settlement with a sizable community of Georgian Jews . According to official statistics published by the administration of the viceroy , in 1880 the total population of 1,034 people was composed of the following religious groups: 628 Georgian Jews, 206 Orthodox Christians (presumably mostly Georgians), and 200 Gregorian Armenians. Some Georgian Jews had moved to Sachkhere from
616-485: A week. There are roughly 15.5 days a year with snow depth. Kutaisi experiences powerful easterly winds in the summer which descend from the nearby mountains. There are 13 administrative units in Kutaisi: The most recent mayoral election was held on 2 October 2021, with a runoff held on 30 October, and the results were as follows: List of elected mayors of Kutaisi The Kutaisi city council (Sakrebulo) governs
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#1732765256562672-589: 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
728-491: Is a major contributor to the economy of Sachkhere. Alva LLC estimates that there are 4,000 small and medium-sized farms and ranches in the region, supported by a program of technical assistance sponsored by USAID and administered by the Farmer-to-Farmer program of CNFA . From the end of the 15th century, much land in the region was owned by the noble Tsereteli family. By the 19th century, Sachkhere had become
784-459: Is an old tradition to go to the forest, which is near Kutaisi. Families barbecue and play games. On this day, people wear traditional clothes, Chokha . There is a tradition of writing lyrics that have been written by writers from Kutaisi, and then airplanes throw them from the sky. There is also a competition in different kinds of martial arts. Kutaisi is twinned with: Kutaisi has cooperation agreements with: Georgian language Georgian
840-686: 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 : Sachkhere Sachkhere ( Georgian : საჩხერე ) is a town at the northern edge of the Imereti Province in Western Georgia . It is the center of the Sachkhere Municipality . Farming
896-681: Is located along both banks of the Rioni River . The city lies at an elevation of 125–300 metres (410–984 feet) above sea level . To the east and northeast Kutaisi is bounded by the Northern Imereti Foothills, to the north by the Samgurali Range , and to the west and the south by the Colchis Plain. Kutaisi is surrounded by deciduous forests to the northeast and the northwest. The low-lying outskirts of
952-520: 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
1008-488: Is one of three international airports currently in operation in Georgia . Kutaisi has two main railway stations, along with multiple smaller ones. Direct inter-city, as well as suburban railway services, are provided to Tbilisi ( Central ) and other major cities across the country. The rail operator on all lines is Georgian Railways . Kutaisoba is the most important holiday in Kutaisi. It is celebrated on 2 May. On this day
1064-1003: 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
1120-401: 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
1176-440: Is −17.0 °C (1.4 °F) and the absolute maximum is 43.1 °C (109.6 °F) recorded on 30 July 2000. Average annual precipitation is around 1,500 mm (59.06 in). Rain may fall in every season of the year. The city often experiences heavy, wet snowfall ( snowfall of 30 cm / 12 in or more per single snowstorm is not uncommon) in the winter, but the snow cover usually does not last for more than
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#17327652565621232-458: 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
1288-499: 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
1344-698: The 2017–18 UEFA Women's Champions League qualifying round after becoming champion in the Georgia women's football championship in 2016. Kutaisi also has an influential basketball club BC Kutaisi 2010 , 2016 Champion of the Georgian Superliga , which plays its home games at the Kutaisi Sport Palas . David the Builder Kutaisi International Airport (IATA: KUT, ICAO: UGKO) is an international airport located 14 km (8.70 mi) west of Kutaisi. It
1400-484: The Colchis Plain) during the autumn and winter months. The summers are generally hot, while the winters are wet and cool. The average annual temperature in the city is 14.8 °C (58.6 °F). January is the coldest month with an average temperature of 5.4 °C (41.7 °F) while August is the hottest month with an average temperature of 24.7 °C (76.5 °F). The absolute minimum recorded temperature
1456-516: 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
1512-457: 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 ,
1568-759: The Pantheon , where many notable citizens are buried. The Kutaisi Synagogue was built in 1885. Higher educational institutions in Kutaisi: Local newspapers include: Kutaisi , Imeretis Moabe , Akhali Gazeti , and Kutaisuri Versia . Other publications include Chveneburebi , a journal published by the Ministry of Diaspora Issues , and Gantiadi , a scientific journal. TV: "Rioni"; Radio: "Dzveli Kalaki" (old City) Also nearly all of Georgia's national-level newspapers, journals and television stations have their representatives in Kutaisi. Kutaisi
1624-579: The Rioni River , and is the capital of Imereti. Historically one of the major cities of Georgia, it served as the political center of Colchis in the Middle Ages as the capital of the Kingdom of Abkhazia and Kingdom of Georgia and later as the capital of the Kingdom of Imereti . From October 2012 to December 2018, Kutaisi was the seat of the Parliament of Georgia as an effort to decentralize
1680-686: The Russian-Turkish wars ended in 1810 with the annexation of the Imeretian Kingdom by the Russian Empire. The city was the administrative capital of the Kutaisi uezd and the larger Kutaisi Governorate , which included much of west Georgia. In March 1879, the city was the site of a blood libel trial that attracted attention all over the Russian Empire. Nine Georgian Jews from Sachkhere were falsely accused of killing
1736-403: 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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1792-548: 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
1848-574: The Georgian government. Archaeological evidence indicates that the city functioned as the capital of the Colchis in the sixth to fifth centuries BC. It is believed that, in Argonautica , a Greek epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their journey to Colchis, author Apollonius Rhodius considered Kutaisi their final destination as well as the residence of King Aeëtes . Later, it
1904-568: 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
1960-589: The Georgian monarchy in the 11th century. From 1008 to 1122, Kutaisi served as the capital of the Kingdom of Georgia , and, from the 15th century until 1810, it was the capital of the Kingdom of Imereti . In 1508, the city was conquered by Selim I , who was the son of Bayezid II , the sultan of the Ottoman Empire . During the 17th century, Imeretian kings made many appeals to the Russian Empire to help them in their struggle for independence from
2016-867: The Jewish men were mostly based on false testimony. All of the accused were acquitted. The previous year Aleksandrov had already defended the Russian revolutionary Vera Zasulich at a highly publicised jury trial in St Petersburg, which had also resulted in an acquittal. The microbiologist George Eliava (1892–1937) was born in Sachkhere. Though small, Sachkhere is famous for having produced two Olympic weightlifting champions - Lasha Talakhadze and Giorgi Asanidze . 42°20′20″N 43°24′14″E / 42.33889°N 43.40389°E / 42.33889; 43.40389 This Georgia location article
2072-629: The Ottomans. All these appeals were ignored as Russia did not want to spoil relations with the Ottomans. Only in the reign of Catherine the Great , in 1768, were troops of general Gottlieb Heinrich Totleben sent to join the forces of King Heraclius II of Georgia , who hoped to reconquer the Ottoman-held southern Georgian lands, with Russian help. Totleben helped King Solomon I of Imereti to recover his capital, Kutaisi, on August 6, 1770. Finally,
2128-403: 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 -,
2184-478: The city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on October 2, 2021 , and the results were as follows: Kutaisi has traditionally been an important industrial center in Georgia, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union most of the old manufacturing lines either stopped working or had to greatly reduce their operations. Nevertheless, the city continues to be an important regional center for
2240-402: The city have a largely agricultural landscape. The city center has many gardens and its streets are lined with high, leafy trees. In the springtime, when the snow starts to melt in the nearby mountains, the storming Rioni River in the middle of the city is heard far beyond its banks. Kutaisi has a humid subtropical climate ( Cfa ) with a well-defined on-shore/monsoonal flow (characteristic of
2296-653: The city of Kutaisi . Prior to the end of serfdom implemented in Kutaisi Governorate from 1865 as part of the Russian Empire's Emancipation reform (1861), many Sachkhere Jews had been serfs on the lands of the Tsereteli family. In 1878, 9 Georgian Jews were arrested in Sachkhere for the alleged killing of a Christian girl from the neighbouring village of Perevisi in Shorapani uezd . A classic case of blood libel , they were falsely accused of abducting
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2352-458: 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
2408-516: The famous churches in Georgia is Motsameta monastery . It is named after two saints, brothers David and Constantine. They were the Dukes of Margveti, and were martyred by Arab invaders in the 8th century. Besides the churches, there are other places of note such as: Sataplia Cave , where one can observe footprints of dinosaurs ; ruins of Geguti Palace , which was one of the residences of Georgian monarchs; "Okros Chardakhi" – Georgian Kings' Palace;
2464-498: 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
2520-485: The girl and extracting her blood for purportedly Jewish religious rituals. In March 1879, the case was heard at the Kutaisi Circuit Court, which had been established in early 1868 as one of several new courts in the South Caucasus created by Tsar Alexander II.'s Judicial Reform . During the trial, the defence lawyers Petr Aleksandrov, Lev Kupernik and Moisei Kikodze convinced the judges that the accusations against
2576-569: The greater Imereti area, acting as a commercial hub for the surrounding countryside. In recent years, the city has started attracting more investment from various multinational corporations. The Auto Mechanical Plant , originally established in 1945, is located in Kutaisi. There are two free industrial zones in Kutaisi: The Kutaisi free industrial zone (Kutaisi FIZ) and the Hualing free industrial zone (Hualing FIZ). The Kutaisi FIZ
2632-412: The judges that the accusations against the Jewish men were mostly based on false testimony. Kutaisi was a major industrial center before Georgia's independence on 9 April 1991. Independence was followed by the economic collapse of the country, and, as a result, many inhabitants of Kutaisi have had to work abroad. Small-scale trade prevails among the rest of the population. In 2011, Mikheil Saakashvili ,
2688-498: 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
2744-472: 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
2800-462: The new building's location. The subsequent government of the Georgian Dream passed a new constitution that moved the parliament back to Tbilisi, effective from January 2019. The landmark of the city is the ruined Bagrati Cathedral , built by Bagrat III , king of Georgia, in the early 11th century. The Gelati Monastery a few km east of the city, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site . One of
2856-416: The population of Kutaisi crowds into the central park, with their children and celebrate together. Some people make masks and there are many kinds of performances. Also, children sell chamomiles . It is an old tradition, in the past ladies collected money for poor people, so today children also collect money for them. On Kutaisoba one can see traditional Georgian dances and can hear folk music. Also, it
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#17327652565622912-412: The president of Georgia, signed a constitutional amendment relocating the parliament to Kutaisi. On 26 May 2012, Saakashvili inaugurated the new Parliament building in Kutaisi . This was done in an effort to decentralize power and shift some political control closer to Abkhazia, although it has been criticized as marginalizing the legislature, and also for the demolition of a Soviet War Memorial formerly at
2968-640: 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
3024-399: 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
3080-451: Was created in 2009 and was established on the initiative of Fresh Electric, an Egypt -based home appliances producer. The Hualing FIZ operates since 2015, and specializes in wood and stone processing, furniture and mattress production and metal construction. Both of the free industrial zones offer multiple incentives to investors such as tax exemptions and reduced barriers for trade. In 2019, German solar panel manufacturer AE Solar opened
3136-534: Was the capital of the kingdom of Lazica until being occupied briefly by the Arabs . An Arab invasion into western Georgia was repelled by Abkhazians jointly with Lazic and Iberian allies in 736, towards c. 786, Leon II won his full independence from the Byzantine Empire and transferred his capital to Kutaisi, thus unifying Lazica and Abasgia via a dynastic union. The latter led the unification of
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