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A Typology of Common Kartvelian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Thomas V. Gamkrelidze
Thomas V. Gamkrelidze*
Affiliation:
Oriental Institute, Tbilisi
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Extract

0.1. The Kartvelian (South Caucasian) languages form a group of closely related dialects consisting of Georgian (with an old literary tradition going back to the 5th century A.D.), Megrelian, Chan (or Laz), and Svan.

0.2. The Kartvelian languages may be viewed as descendants of a common language that existed in the past, of which different transformations yielded historically attested cognate linguistic systems. The ancestral common language (Common Kartvelian) is not recorded in documents. We arrive at it by special methods of reconstruction.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 42 , Issue 1: January-March , March 1966, pp. 69 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © 1966 by Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 The theory of which this article presents the essential conclusions has been set forth in Th. V. Gamkrelidze and G. I. Machavariani, The system of sonants and ablaut in Kartvelian languages, Tbilisi, 1965 (in Georgian and Russian).

2 In the following formulas the symbol C stands for any consonant, V for any vowel; and S for syllabic and nonsyllabic sonants respectively; and # for pause.

3 By the term Zan I mean the ancestral language of which Megrelian and Chan are closely related descendants, i.e. Common Megrelo-Chan.

4 Introvertive harmonic clusters are consonant sequences in which a nonvelar voiced, voiceless (aspirated), or glottalized stop or affricate is followed by a homogeneous velar consonant. The following are introvertive harmonic clusters: