Consonants

Where there are multiple consonants for a point of articulation, they are given in the following order: voiceless / voiced / voiceless ejective.

1/q’/ has neither non-ejective nor voiced counterparts

It is important to note that some consonants in Georgian are combination of two sounds. These are:

• ც,ʦ (dental and affricate, voiceless aspirated)

• ძ,ʣ (dental and affricate, voiced)

• წ,ʦ‘ (dental and affricate, voiceless ejective)

Also compare these similar sounds:

• ქ, k (aspirated) and კ, k’ (ejective)

• თ, t (aspirated) and ტ, t’ (ejective)

• ფ, p (aspirated) and პ, p’ (ejective)

• ჩ, ʧ (aspirated) and ჭ, ʧ‘ (ejective)

In the ejective sounds, one creates a stronger stress in the sound that follows the consonant.

In Georgian there are two sounds resembling the English -h-:

• ჰ, h (fricative and glottal) and ხ, kh (fricative and velar).

While the first one sounds the same as h in the word hotel (IPA [h]), the second one does not have an English equivalent, but is articulated in the same place as English k and g. It is the same sound as in the Scottish word loch or the name of the composer Bach (IPA [x]).

There are many consonant clusters in Georgian, while all nouns end with a vowel in the nominative case. Many nouns in Georgian begin with two consonants (see the examples section).

Vowels

Phonotactics

Some features of the Georgian phonotactics.
The language contains some formidable consonant clusters, as may be seen in words like gvprtskvni (“You peel us”) and mtsvrtneli (“trainer”).

Morphology

Georgian is an agglutinative language. There are certain prefixes and suffixes that are joined together in order to build a verb. In some cases, there can be up to 8 different morphemes in one verb at the same time. An example can be ageshenebinat (“you (pl) had built”). The verb can be broken down to parts:a-g-e-shen-eb-in-a-t. Each morpheme here contributes to the meaning of the verb tense or the person who has performed the verb (See Georgian grammar for a more detailed discussion).

Morphonology

Syncope is a common phenomenon in Georgian. When a suffix (especially the plural suffix -eb-) is attached to a word which has either of the vowels a or e in the last syllable, this vowel is, in most words, lost. For example, megobari means “friend.” To say “friends,” one says, megobØrebi (megobrebi), with the loss of a in the last syllable of the word root.

Inflection

Georgian has seven cases of the noun: nominative, ergative, dative, genitive, instrumental, adverbial and vocative. An interesting feature of Georgian is that, while in almost all other languages the subject of a sentence is always in the nominative case, and the object is in the accusative case (or dative), in Georgian, one can find this reversed in many situations (this depends mainly on the character of the verb). This is called the dative construction. In the past tense of the transitive verbs, and in the present tense of the verb “to know”, the subject is in the ergative case.

Syntax

Georgian is a post-positional language, meaning that the adpositions are placed after the noun (most of them as suffixes and some of them as separate words) rather than being stated before it. There are several post-positions corresponding to the meanings of prepositions in English. Each post-position requires a specific case of the noun to which it is attached (this is akin to the use of prepositions in German).

Georgian has a subject-verb-object primary sentence structure, but the word order is not as strict as in some Germanic languages such as English or German. Not all word orders are acceptable, but it is also possible to encounter the structure of subject-object-verb. Georgian has no grammatical gender; even pronouns are gender-neutral. The language also has no articles. Therefore, for example, “guest”, “a guest” and “the guest” are said in the same way. In relative clauses, however, it is possible to establish the meaning of the definite article through use of some particles.