Georgian

Last updated: 2019-10-31

Background

Language Family: Kartvelian / Karto-Zan / Georgian

• Georgian is spoken throughout the country of Georgia.

Phonology

Consonants

	Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stops	pʰ pʼ b	tʰ tʼ d		kʰ kʼ ɡ	q’
Affricates		ts tsʼ dz	tʃ tʃʼ dʒ
Fricatives	v	s z	ʃ ʒ	x ɣ		h
Nasals	m	n
Flaps		ɾ
Approximants		l
Note: Phonemes that have the diacritic (ʰ) are aspirated and phonemes that have the diacritic (’) ejective.

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i	u
Mid	ɛ	ɔ
Low		ɑ

Alphabet

Grapheme	Phoneme
ა	/ɑ/
ბ	/b/
გ	/ɡ/
დ	/d/
ე	/ɛ/
ვ	/v/
ზ	/z/
თ	/tʰ/
ი	/i/
კ	/kʼ/
ლ	/l/
მ	/m/
ნ	/n/
ო	/ɔ/
პ	/pʼ/
ჟ	/ʒ/
რ	/ɾ/
ს	/s/
ტ	/tʼ/
უ	/u/
ფ	/pʰ/
ქ	/kʰ/
ღ	/ɣ/
ყ	/qʼ/
შ	/ʃ/
ჩ	/tʃ/
ც	/ts/
ძ	/dz/
წ	/tsʼ/
ჭ	/tʃʼ/
ხ	/x/
ჯ	/dʒ/
ჰ	/h/
Misc. Graphemes
ჱ	/ei/
ჲ	/i/
ჳ	/vi/
ჴ	/x/
ჵ	/hɔi/

Lenition Rules

• /v/ becomes a glide [w] following consonants and in coda positions (Hewitt 1995, 21).
• /q/ is often pronounced with frication (ibid.).

Misc. Rules

• Word-final voiced stops are realized as their aspirated counterparts (Aronson and Kiziria 1999, 15).

References

Aronson, Howard I., and Dodona Kiziria. 1999. Georgian Language and Culture: A Continuing Course. Slavica.

Hewitt, B. G. 1995. Georgian: A Structural Reference Grammar. London Oriental and African Language Library, v. 2. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia: J. Benjamins Pub. Co.