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.
36-527: Zelkova (from the Georgian dzelkva , 'stone pillar') is a genus of six species of deciduous trees in the elm family Ulmaceae , native to southern Europe, and southwest and eastern Asia. They vary in size from shrubs ( Z. sicula ) to large trees up to 35 m (115 ft) tall ( Z. carpinifolia ). The bark is smooth, dark brown. Unlike the elms, the branchlets are never corky or winged. The leaves are alternate, with serrated margins, and (unlike
72-457: 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
108-569: 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
144-665: 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
180-490: 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
216-399: 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
252-589: 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
288-401: Is a good indication that ancient patterns might be recovered using molecular markers. A few phylogenetic and biogeographical studies have been carried out on Zelkova , but these studies had small sample sizes or weak representation of wild populations. A more comprehensive phylogeographical analysis, based on trn H– psb A, trn L and internal transcribed spacer regions 1 and 2 (ITS1 and ITS2),
324-536: Is endemic to Crete (Greece); it has a fragmentary distribution in the four main mountain regions of Crete (Lefka Ori, Psiloritis, Dikti and Thrypti), between 900 and 1800 m above sea level, which corresponds to the upper timberline. It grows mainly on north-facing slopes or in and around rocky river-beds and gullies which remain moist during dry summers. The species is highly endangered through habitat fragmentation and destruction, overgrazing, fire and water stress. The Sicilian Zelkova Z. sicula , only discovered in 1991,
360-400: Is hard, used for making furniture. In Japan, the wood of the keyaki, or Z. serrata is used for making drums, called wadaiko . The most desired drums are hollowed out of a trunk of a zelkova tree, but in many cases, the drum is fashioned from staves of keyaki wood, using the same method as when constructing a barrel. The name Zelkova derives from the native name of Z. carpinifolia in
396-431: Is listed as an endangered species . The two known populations close to Syracuse (Bosco Pisano and Ciranna) comprise a small number of low shrubs suffering from severe overgrazing ; the natural mature size of undamaged specimens is unknown. Whilst all the known Zelkova taxa are currently in cultivation and in botanic gardens or arboreta, relatively few collections are known to be from wild sourced material or known in
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#1732783035491432-1003: 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
468-401: 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
504-458: 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
540-499: 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
576-516: 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
612-677: The Georgian language – one of the Kartvelian languages spoken in the Caucasus , as shown by the Georgian name, dzelkva , from the words dzeli, meaning 'bar' or 'pillar', and kva meaning 'rock' or 'stone' The tree was often used for making rock-hard and durable bars for building and furniture. Georgian language Georgian 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
648-457: 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 ,
684-400: The perianth is campanulate , with four to six (to seven) lobes , and the stamens are short. Pistillate and hermaphrodite flowers are solitary, or rarely in clusters of two to four, in the upper leaf axils of young branchlets. The fruit is a dry, nut -like drupe with a dorsal keel, produced singly in the leaf axils. The perianth and stigma are persistent. The genus Zelkova
720-457: 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
756-620: The Cenozoic Period. Today, the genus comprises six species with disjunct distribution patterns: three in eastern Asia [ Zelkova serrata (Thunb.) Makino; Zelkova schneideriana Hand.-Mazz.; and Zelkova sinica C. K. Schneid.], one in southwestern Asia [ Zelkova carpinifolia (Pall.) C. Koch] and two on the Mediterranean islands of Sicily ( Zelkova sicula Di Pasq., Garfi & Quézel) and Crete [Z elkova abelicea (Lam.) Boiss.]. The oldest fossils attributed to Zelkova date from
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#1732783035491792-568: 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
828-856: 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 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
864-493: The Quaternary and the influence of the cycles of glaciation on species distribution and structure. Phylogeography has, however, also been used to document more ancient patterns, with some of them presumably dating as far back as the early Miocene. The retrieval of ancient patterns may be specific to tree species, which are assumed to evolve more slowly than herbaceous plants and shrubs. Zelkova trees live for centuries, which
900-403: 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 -,
936-509: The countries of their natural distribution. Z. sicula and Z. abelicea are the two taxa considered to be at most risk of extinction (Critically Endangered and Vulnerable). These two Zelkova species are the two with the most restricted natural distribution—both are small island endemics. The Zelkova with the widest natural distribution, Z. serrata , is also the most common Zelkova in botanic garden collections Phylogeography, using chloroplast and mitochondrial markers, has mostly focused on
972-458: 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
1008-832: The early Eocene (55 million years ago) in western North America, where the genus is extinct today. In Bulgaria, Zelkova fossils were found in Paleogene and Neogene layers in the following locations: Zelkova ungeri (Ett.) Kov. — Lozenets, Kurilo, Chukurovo in Sofia Region, Dospey in Samokov Region, Pernik, Pirin Mine in Blagoevgrad Region, Bobov Dol in Kyustendil Region; Zelkova praelonga Berger — Pirin Mine in Blagoevgrad Region. Zelkova abelicea
1044-498: 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
1080-498: 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
1116-472: 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
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1152-429: The related elms ) a symmetrical base to the leaf blade. The leaves are in two distinct rows; they have pinnate venation and each vein extends to the leaf margin, where it terminates in a tooth. There are two stipules at each node, though these are caducous (shed early), leaving a pair of scars at the leaf base. Zelkova is polygamous . Staminate flowers are clustered in the lower leaf axils of young branchlets;
1188-640: 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
1224-399: 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
1260-545: Was common throughout northern Europe and North America as late as the Pliocene . However, extensive Pleistocene glaciation has confined the genus to its present range to the eastern Mediterranean islands and the Caucasus , and in eastern Asia where only local glaciation occurred. Species of Zelkova were important elements of the vast forests that prevailed throughout the Northern Hemisphere during much of
1296-424: Was the first to use a wide sampling of natural populations from nearly all the disjunct regions where Z. abelicea , Z. carpinifolia and Z. sicula presently grow. It aimed to assess the diversity within and among species using DNA from two cellular compartments that have different modes of inheritance and trace different histories. Zelkova serrata and Z. carpinifolia are grown as ornamental trees . The wood
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