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| Old Georgian language | |
|---|---|
| Name | Old Georgian |
| Region | Caucasus |
| Era | 5th–11th century |
| Familycolor | Kartvelian languages |
| Fam1 | Kartvelian languages |
| Script | Georgian |
Old Georgian language Old Georgian was the earliest documented stage of the literary Georgian language attested in inscriptions, hagiography, liturgy, and historiography between roughly the 5th and 11th centuries. It served as the vehicle for ecclesiastical texts linked to Christianity in Georgia, monastic networks such as Iviron Monastery, and royal chancelleries associated with dynasties like the Bagrationi dynasty and polities such as Kingdom of Iberia (antiquity) and the Kingdom of Abkhazia. Its corpus bridges linguistic, religious, and diplomatic contacts with neighboring polities including the Byzantine Empire, Arab Caliphate, and Armenian Kingdom.
Old Georgian belongs to the Kartvelian languages family alongside Mingrelian language, Laz language, and Svan language. The historical emergence of Old Georgian is tied to Christianization under figures like Saint Nino and state formations such as the Principality of Iberia and later the unified Georgian kingdom. Contacts with Greek language, Syriac language, Persian language, and Arabic language shaped its literary development; diplomatic exchanges involved envoys to the Byzantine Empire, Abbasid Caliphate, and Bagratid dynasty (Armenia). Ecclesiastical institutions like the Georgian Orthodox Church and monastic centers on Mount Athos transmitted texts and fostered scriptorial practices.
Old Georgian phonology reconstructs a system of voiced, voiceless, and ejective obstruents comparable to modern Georgian language but with archaisms reflected in medieval grammarians such as Ioane Petritsi and philologists working in the tradition of Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani. Vowel inventory includes phonemes paralleling those in Classical Armenian stages, while palatalization and consonant clusters show affinities with neighboring languages like Abkhaz language and Ubykh language. Reconstructions rely on comparative evidence from Svan language and later developments documented by scholars associated with institutions such as the Tbilisi State University and archives like the National Archives of Georgia.
Manuscripts of Old Georgian are written in the early forms of the Georgian scripts: primarily Asomtavruli script and later Nuskhuri script before the adoption of Mkhedruli script. Scribal conventions appear in codices produced at centers like Opiza Monastery and collections housed in repositories including the Matenadaran and collections once held by Georgian National Center of Manuscripts. Palaeographic analysis connects specific hands to monasteries such as Petritsoni and patrons from royal houses like the Bagrationi dynasty; paleographers compare glyph forms with inscriptions found at sites like Bolnisi Sioni and Ubisa Cathedral.
Old Georgian displays a rich agglutinative and fusional morphology with noun case systems and verb morphologies that indicate subject, object, and indirect relations akin to patterns studied in typological works at Max Planck Institute projects. Verbal categories include preverbs, version markers, and a series of screeves that prefigure later Georgian conjugation; analyses draw on grammars linked to scholars from the Institute of Linguistics, Tbilisi and editions of medieval commentaries by figures such as Euthymius of Athos. Nominal morphology shows case marking comparable to entries in grammars circulated alongside translations of Book of Kings and homilies by Gregory of Nyssa reproduced in Georgian.
The Old Georgian lexicon records borrowings from Greek language (ecclesiastical and technical terms), Syriac language (liturgical terminology), Persian language and Middle Persian (administrative and court vocabulary), and Arabic language (scientific and legal lexemes). Loanwords appear in texts associated with ministries of courts tied to the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate; later lexical stratification influenced the lexicon preserved in codices linked to the Georgian Orthodox Church and aristocratic correspondence of the Bagrationi dynasty. Indigenous Kartvelian roots coexist with these layers, as documented in lexica compiled by scholars connected to institutions like the Ilia State University and earlier collectors such as Prince Ioann of Georgia.
Key Old Georgian works include hagiographies like the Lives of the saints composed for figures such as Saint Nino and Saint Shushanik, translations of patristic writings by Basil of Caesarea, liturgical books used in Gelati Monastery, and historical chronicles later continued in texts associated with Kartlis Tskhovreba. Manuscript witnesses survive in collections at the Matenadaran, the National Library of Georgia, and monastic archives on Mount Athos and in Jerusalem. Paleographers identify codices from scriptoria in Kakheti, Imereti, and Tao-Klarjeti with provenance traced to patrons including members of the Bagrationi dynasty and clerics such as Arsen of Ikalto.
Old Georgian formed the foundation for the medieval literary tradition that shaped later forms of Georgian language, influencing poets and scholars like Shota Rustaveli and jurists in compilations such as Georgian law codes; its liturgical corpus sustained rites of the Georgian Orthodox Church and monastic scholarship at Iviron Monastery and Gelati Academy. Its manuscripts informed Byzantine, Armenian, and Slavic interactions, and modern philology at institutions like the Georgian National Academy of Sciences and international centers such as the British Library and Bibliothèque nationale de France continues to edit and study Old Georgian texts, shaping our understanding of medieval Caucasus history and literary culture.
Category:Kartvelian languages Category:Medieval languages