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Megrelian
Mingrelian or Megrelian (, ) is a Kartvelian language spoken in Western Georgia (regions of Mingrelia and Abkhazia), primarily by the Mingrelians. The language was also called kolkhuri (Georgian ) in the early 20th century. Mingrelian has historically been only a regional language within the boundaries of historical Georgian states and then modern Georgia, and the number of younger people speaking it has decreased substantially, with UNESCO designating it as a "definitely endangered language". Distribution and status No reliable figure exists for the number of native speakers of Mingrelian, but it is estimated to be between 300,000 and 500,000. Most speakers live in the Mingrelia (or Samegrelo and formerly Odishi) region of Georgia, which comprises the Odishi Hills and the Kolkheti Lowlands, from the Black Sea coast to the Svan Mountains and the Tskhenistskali River. Smaller enclaves existed in Abkhazia, but the ongoing civil unrest there has displaced many Mingrelian sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mingrelia
Mingrelia ( ka, სამეგრელო, tr; xmf, სამარგალო, samargalo; ab, Агырны, Agirni) is a historic province in the western part of Georgia, formerly known as Odishi. It is primarily inhabited by the Mingrelians, a subgroup of Georgians. Geography and climate Mingrelia is bordered by the secessionist region of Abkhazia to the north-west, Svaneti to the north, Imereti to the east, Guria to the south and the Black Sea to the west. Administratively, the historic province of Mingrelia is incorporated joined with the northern part of the neighboring mountainous province of Svaneti to form the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region, the capital of which is Mingrelia's main city, Zugdidi.Tim Burford As it is the case with most Black Sea coastal areas of Georgia, Mingrelia's climate is subtropical with frequent rains. The coastal areas have many marshlands despite the Soviet Georgian authorities' efforts to dry them up. These marshlands contain many rare ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgian Language
Georgian (, , ) is the most widely-spoken Kartvelian language, and 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 87.6% of its population. Its speakers today number approximately four million. Classification No claimed genetic links between the Kartvelian languages and any other language family in 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. Dialects Standard Georgian is largely based on the Kartlian dialect. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kolkheti
In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia. Its population, the Colchians are generally thought to have been an early Kartvelian-speaking tribe ancestral to the contemporary western Georgians, namely Svans and Zans. According to David Marshall Lang: "one of the most important elements in the modern Georgian nation, the Colchians were probably established in the Caucasus by the Middle Bronze Age."''The Cambridge Ancient History'', John Anthony Crook, Elizabeth Rawson, p. 255 It has been described in modern scholarship as "the earliest Georgian formation", which, along with the Kingdom of Iberia, would later contribute significantly to the development of the Kingdom of Georgia and the Georgian nation.Cyril Toumanoff, ''Studies in Christian Caucasian History'', pp. 69, 84Christopher Haas, ''Early Christianity in Contexts, An ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgia (country)
Georgia (, ; ) is a transcontinental country at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is part of the Caucasus region, bounded by the Black Sea to the west, by Russia to the north and northeast, by Turkey to the southwest, by Armenia to the south, and by Azerbaijan to the southeast. The country covers an area of , and has a population of 3.7 million people. Tbilisi is its capital as well as its largest city, home to roughly a third of the Georgian population. During the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia, such as Colchis and Iberia. In the early 4th century, ethnic Georgians officially adopted Christianity, which contributed to the spiritual and political unification of the early Georgian states. In the Middle Ages, the unified Kingdom of Georgia emerged and reached its Golden Age during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter, the kingdom decl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abkhazia
Abkhazia, ka, აფხაზეთი, tr, , xmf, აბჟუა, abzhua, or ( or ), officially the Republic of Abkhazia, is a partially recognised state in the South Caucasus, recognised by most countries as part of Georgia, which views the region as an autonomous republic.Olga Oliker, Thomas S. Szayna. Faultlines of Conflict in Central Asia and the South Caucasus: Implications for the U.S. Army. Rand Corporation, 2003, .Emmanuel Karagiannis. Energy and Security in the Caucasus. Routledge, 2002. .''The Guardian''Georgia up in arms over Olympic cash/ref> It lies on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, south of the Greater Caucasus mountains in northwestern Georgia. It covers and has a population of around 245,000. Its capital and largest city is Sukhumi. The status of Abkhazia is a central issue of the Georgian–Abkhazian conflict and Georgia–Russia relations. The polity is recognised as a state by Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru, and Syria. While Georgia la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guria
Guria ( ka, გურია) is a region (''mkhare'') in Georgia, in the western part of the country, bordered by the eastern end of the Black Sea. The region has a population of 113,000 (2016), with Ozurgeti as the regional capital. Geography Guria is bordered by Samegrelo to the north-west, Imereti to the north, Samtskhe-Javakheti to the east, Ajaria to the south, and the Black Sea to the west. The province has an area of . Guria is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude. Administrative divisions Guria is divided into 4 entities (3 municipalities and 1 city), including : * City of Ozurgeti * Ozurgeti Municipality * Lanchkhuti Municipality * Chokhatauri Municipality History The territory that is now Guria was part of the kingdom of Colchis, best known in the West for the tale of the Golden Fleece. Following the collapse of the Colchian Kingdom it became part of the Kingdom of Lazica in the first century BC. In antiquity the area was a signi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mingrelians
The Mingrelians ( xmf, მარგალეფი, margalefi; ka, მეგრელები, tr) are an indigenous Kartvelian-speaking ethnic subgroup of Georgians that mostly live in the Mingrelia ( xmf, სამარგალო, samargalo; ka, სამეგრელო, tr) region of Georgia. They also live in considerable numbers in Abkhazia and Tbilisi. In the pre-1930 Soviet census, the Mingrelians were afforded their own ethnic group category, alongside many other ethnic subgroups of Georgians. The Mingrelians speak the Mingrelian language, and are typically bilingual also in Georgian. Both these languages belong to the Kartvelian language family. History In the 13th century BC, the Kingdom of Colchis was formed as a result of the increasing consolidation of the tribes inhabiting the region, which covered modern western Georgia. The endonym ''margalefi'' (მარგალეფი) is presumably reflected in the Greek ''Manraloi'' (Μάνραλοι), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kartvelian Languages
The Kartvelian languages (; ka, ქართველური ენები, tr; also known as South Caucasian, Kartvelic, and Iberian languagesBoeder (2002), p. 3) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Georgia. There are approximately 5.2 million Kartvelian speakers worldwide, with large groups in Russia, Iran, the United States, the European Union, Israel, and northeastern Turkey. The Kartvelian family has no known relation to any other language family, making it one of the world's primary language families. The most widely spoken of these languages is Georgian. The earliest literary source in any Kartvelian language is the Old Georgian Bir el Qutt inscriptions, written in ancient Georgian ''Asomtavruli'' script at the once-existing Georgian monastery near Bethlehem,Lang (1966), p. 154 dated to c. 430 AD. The Georgian script is used to write all Kartvelian languages. Social and cultural status Georgian is the official language of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zan Languages
The Zan languages, or Zanuri ( ka, ზანური ენები) or Colchidian, are a branch of the Kartvelian languages constituted by the Mingrelian and Laz languages. The grouping is disputed as some Georgian linguists consider the two to form a dialect continuum of one Zan language. This is often challenged on the most commonly applied criteria of mutual intelligibility when determining borders between languages, as Mingrelian and Laz are only partially mutually intelligible, though speakers of one language can recognize a sizable amount of vocabulary of the other, primarily due to semantic loans, lexical loans and other areal features resulting from geographical proximity and historical close contact common for dialect continuums. The term ''Zan'' comes from the Greco-Roman name of one of the chief Colchian tribes, which is almost identical to the name given to the Mingrelians by the Svans (a northwestern Kartvelian group). Georgian linguist Akaki Shanidze proposed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleksandre Tsagareli
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Aleksander and Aleksandr. Related names and diminutives include Iskandar, Alec, Alek, Alex, Alexandre, Aleks, Aleksa and Sander; feminine forms include Alexandra, Alexandria, and Sasha. Etymology The name ''Alexander'' originates from the (; 'defending men' or 'protector of men'). It is a compound of the verb (; 'to ward off, avert, defend') and the noun (, genitive: , ; meaning 'man'). It is an example of the widespread motif of Greek names expressing "battle-prowess", in this case the ability to withstand or push back an enemy battle line. The earliest attested form of the name, is the Mycenaean Greek feminine anthroponym , , (/ Alexandra/), written in the Linear B syllabic script. Alaksandu, alternatively called ''Alakasandu' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Svan Language
Svan ( ''lušnu nin''; ka, სვანური ენა, tr) is a Kartvelian language spoken in the western Georgian region of Svaneti primarily by 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 archaic features that have been lost in the other Kartvelian languages. Features Familial features Like all languages of the Caucasian language family, Svan has a large number of consonants. It has agreement between subject and object, and a split-ergative morphosyntactic system. Verbs are marked for aspect, evidentiality and "version". Distinguishing features Svan retains the voiceless aspirated uvular plosive, , 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 plus , a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutually Intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understanding the first. When it is relatively symmetric, it is characterized as "mutual". It exists in differing degrees among many related or geographically proximate languages of the world, often in the context of a dialect continuum. Intelligibility Factors An individual's achievement of moderate proficiency or understanding in a language (called L2) other than their first language (L1) typically requires considerable time and effort through study and practical application if the two l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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