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Some nice words for Georgian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| FrancescoP Octoglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5950 days ago 169 posts - 258 votes  Speaks: Italian*, French, English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Norwegian Studies: Georgian, Japanese, Croatian, Greek | Message 1 of 22 10 August 2008 at 4:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello everybody. I realize it's probably not the best time to get into this particular subject (as I write the Georgian-Russian conflict in South Ossetia is escalating), but I always been wondering why Georgian never or hardly ever pops up in polls for the hardest language out there. No, wait, I think I know: hardly anybody would get into his/her mind to learn such a thing. I remember the hard time I had gathering study material when I first got the idea and began to work.
Still, Georgian is one of the most beautiful languages around. I suppose most people think it's just another of those smallish, ugly sounding, consonant-packed, unuseful and incomprehensible caucasian dialects. Well, it isn't. For starters, it can boast a rich and distinguished literary tradition, reaching back to late antiquity. It is written in a native alphabet that's a real candy for the eye. Best of all - I speak to those for whom language learning is a goal in itself - its grammar is *tremendously* challenging. Here's my bid for most difficult language ever! I have a smattering of Mandarin and I study Japanese on a regular basis and sure, I find them hard, but so to speak "controllably" hard. Given a fair amount of time and a good supply of energy, they can be learned without effort, bit after bit (don't know about Korean). In my case it's a thing I do at breakfast, to start my day on a merry tone. It's like doing push-ups for the mind, nice and healthy. As opposed to that, my poor girlfriend has learned to know the panic-stricken, absent-minded and empty stare I get when I'm chatting with a native Georgian on Skype, trying to make some decent conversation. After years it's still like my brain was twitching and rolling around every time, squeezing the most out of every cell and still panting... I'm a fairly experienced polyglot and I tackled ancient Greek in school as a kid, but I never happened to feel that way before. There is a saying among French linguists: when you pick up Linguistics learn Georgian first, beacause every known grammatical phenomenon is sure to be in there. It's a joke of course, but there's some truth to it. I'm not going to get into technicalities now, but if somebody happens to be interested I'll be glad to describe some of the features of this very peculiar tongue. I don't want to get political right now, but in a moment like this, when little lovely Georgia is about to succumb to one-sided Russian military invasion (whatever its responsibilities in S. Ossetia), it's important for me to help conveying a civilized, encouraging and differentiated picture of a struggling "european" country. Plus, this was my first post ever. Nice to be here, guys. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| TDC Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6921 days ago 261 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian | Message 2 of 22 10 August 2008 at 7:22am | IP Logged | ||
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I absolutely adore the Georgian letters. I think they're extremely beautiful.
I've considered learning Georgian merely to have the pleasure of looking at it. So, what are some of the more interesting features of Georgian? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6333 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 3 of 22 10 August 2008 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Gamarjobat megobrebi!!
Like you say, let´s not politicize Georgian language, otherwise we should do the same with many other languages, among which English. I agree with FrancescoP, Georgian is this unknown yet wonderful language that even after having started years ago and come back to it once and again, I still find it complicated to build phrases in. So many things to take into account, the screeves, the ergativity that is not always used but depends on the tense you use, the declensions... For those interested in knowing how it sounds, visit liza.ge, there are many songs you can listen to. You should at least speak some Russian to browse the web, unless you already know Georgian, of course. Try Vakis Parki or Achiko Meparidze. If you guys open a thread for Georgian, I promise to participate in it, though at 1 post per month till I figure out how to express what I want to. No, seriously, it´s complicated because it´s different to so many other languages, but in the end, it´s just another human language. Enjoy it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FrancescoP Octoglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5950 days ago 169 posts - 258 votes Speaks: Italian*, French, English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Norwegian Studies: Georgian, Japanese, Croatian, Greek | Message 4 of 22 10 August 2008 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I’m glad to see that the thread is attracting some interest! Thank you for contributing.
So, what is it that makes Georgian so tremendously hard to speak? The first thing to mention would obviously be its nightmarish verbal system. A XVII century missionary, the first ever to pen a rough sketch of Georgian grammar, took the easy way out by stating that each Georgian verb required a special conjugation pattern of its own, which must be shocking news to somebody used to the rather regular verbal system of Latin, where you basically apply the same endings to each and every possible verb. This is not quite true, of course, but it may safely be said that every Georgian verb is a small system in itself. This comes from the fact that the number of theoretically possible forms a verb may take is huge. All sorts of overtones and implications may be packed into a single form by means of adding or subtracting stuff. Around a stem such as “z’er” (writing) or “k’l” (killing / death) you may create a whole universe. The reason is that the verbal morphology of Georgian is strongly agglutinative, that is a fully conjugated verbal form is made up of all sorts of bits and pieces glued together. Not all “slots” may be filled at the same times, of course, and some exclude others. Some tenses/moods require the presence of elements that fall away in other tenses/moods. Different prefixes give the action a certain shade or direction, like in Russian or German. By adding a preradical vowel you can reflexivize the action (it’s called version) or refer it to a surface, but the very same vowel may carry out other functions too. There are special circumfixes to direct the action towards a third party, as if in “*I him-give him a pen”, “*I you-play a song for you”. Not everything is always possible with every verb, though, and the set of legitimate combinations makes up for every verb a little universe of its own. The late Kita Tschenkeli, author of the standard Georgian-German dictionary, expressed this feature very well by ordering verbs by the root and building each dictionary entry as a small treatise on the peculiar combinatory possibilities each root was able to accommodate. These random facts could be discouraging enough, but here comes another very funny peculiarity: I would describe it by saying that logical functions may be detached from their inherent markers. Take Latin for example: in most situations (in main clauses at any rate) the subject is always expressed by the nominative case, described in grammar as the “subject case”. This is not the case (pun intended) with Georgian, where the logical subject may be expressed by a range of different cases according to the syntactical situation. Present/future tenses want nominative, but the aorist/optative group requires that the subject be expressed by the narrative case and the OBJECT by nominative (some call this a form of ergativity). Perfect tenses, again, require dative for the subject and nominative for the object. With some medial verbs, sometimes called inversiva, the markers of the indirect object (he who benefits from an action) change function and express the logical subject. So to speak, the same dozen of bits and pieces may have different functions according to the context – just for extra complexity… Merely practical difficulties, such as a new alphabet, monstrous consonant clusters and strange guttural sounds begin to feel like trifles once the student gets a grasp of what’s ahead. All in all, everything is very logical, and the elegance and economy of some expressions is wonderful, but getting all this to work in real time according to shifting situations is… well… challenging to say the least. The beauty of it all, on the other hand, is ravishing. Unfortunately, the learning material available so far in any language is not really up to the task (with the possible exception of Tschenkeli’s extra rare two-volume grammar, an all-time linguistic masterpiece). The language has not been digested for didactical purposes yet. That’s the reason why most beginners find it impossible to master and give up. Before you manage to say “I would like to drink” you must have come a looong way in grammar. One of my plans (dreams) for the future is writing a rational, clear, progressive learner's manual that really teaches the damn thing. But here I am: after years of cramming and drilling and reading all that was available in print I’m still fumbling for words every time a native addresses me... 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Masked Avenger Triglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 6134 days ago 145 posts - 151 votes Speaks: English, French*, Danish Studies: Finnish, Latin | Message 5 of 22 10 August 2008 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Got any sample of Georgian text?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FrancescoP Octoglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5950 days ago 169 posts - 258 votes Speaks: Italian*, French, English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Norwegian Studies: Georgian, Japanese, Croatian, Greek | Message 6 of 22 10 August 2008 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sure, I will post some material tomorrow. The native font might pose compatibility problems, so I will just type in a non scientifical transliteration (a scientifical one would also require strange conventional characters that might turn out funny, etc). I will post some short sentences and show what's going on in detail. To be continued
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6333 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 7 of 22 10 August 2008 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some bibliography in English:
The Georgian language for foreign learners: concise grammar with texts and vocabulary By Leila Geguchadze, Tbilisi, Institute of Linguistics. Georgian. A Learner´s grammar By George Hewitt, New York, Routledge I have both but I don´t consider them as methods, rather they are mostly grammars and we all know how harsh is to learn a language with just grammars. I combine them with the reading of one of Harry Potter´s book in Georgian that I bought through internet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| IbanezFire Senior Member United States Joined 6694 days ago 119 posts - 124 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Russian | Message 8 of 22 10 August 2008 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | ||
When I was looking at georgian a while ago I looked at this and it got horrible reviews. Avoid any georgian book by George Hewitt. Here's a link that will be of use to you, http://multimedia.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/audio/languagele ssons/georgia/ 1 person has voted this message useful |
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