Kartvelian languages

The South Caucasian languages ​​, often referred to as kartwelische languages ​​or Kartwelsprachen (Georgian ქართველური ენები kartveluri enebi ), are one of language family of Caucasian languages. The science that deals with the South Caucasian languages ​​, is called Kartwelologie. The terminologies Südkaukasisch / Kartwelisch cause great disagreement among linguists and among speakers of Laz language. Südkaukasisch as a neutral scientific term for the language family is certainly innocuous.

The group consists of five individual languages ​​:

  • The Georgian language is around 5 million speakers, by far the largest single language group. It is the official language in Georgia and South Caucasus therefore also the only language with official status. Smaller groups of speakers can be found in Turkey, Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Ukraine.
  • The Judeo - Georgian language (also Judengeorgisch ) is often regarded as a separate language, but sometimes in only a dialect of Georgian. It is the language of the Georgian Jews, and is characterized by numerous Aramaic and Hebrew loanwords. In Georgia, there are now only around 10,000 to 20,000 speakers. Most Georgian Jews emigrated in the past decades after the end of the Soviet Union to Israel; there still live some 60,000 speakers, more emigrants groups moved to the USA, Russia and Western Europe.
  • The lasische language is spoken by around 250,000 people counted the people of the hydrolases, which settled on the Black Sea coast in southwest Georgia and northeastern Turkey.
  • The Mingrelian language with about 500,000 speakers, the second largest single language of the South Caucasian language branch. It is spoken ( Samegrelo ) by the people of Mingrelians in western Georgia.

Laz and Mingrelian are more closely related to each other, some of them establish itself together as dialects of the so-called sanischen or Colchian language that is associated with the ancient kingdom of Colchis.

  • The swanische language is spoken by around 40,000 people in some mountain valleys in northern Georgia. From the gemeinkartwelischen basic language they split off first.

Georgian and Judeo - Georgian are the only written languages ​​of the group. Georgian is in the 3rd century in its own alphabet, the Mchedruli written. For Judeo - Georgian Hebrew alphabet is used. These two languages ​​are also the only two mutually intelligible languages.

The Mingrelians, Laz and Svan in Georgia traditionally understand to this day as part of the Georgians and use the Georgian language as a written language. The number of lasing in Georgia amounts to about 3,000. Most of the lasing lives in Turkey ( 250,000 ), and sees itself as part of the Turkish nation and uses the Latin alphabet.

A relationship to other languages ​​has not yet been proven (not even to other Caucasian languages ​​). However, some linguists suggest a relationship with a number of other language families (see table Nostra ).

Laz people Svaneti Nostratic languages
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