The Georgian Alphabet

The modern Georgian alphabet has 33 letters ^[4] — 5 vowels (ა ე ი ო უ) and 28 consonants.

The original medieval alphabet had 38 letters, but 5 archaic letters (ჱ ჲ ჳ ჴ ჵ) fell out of everyday use by the 19th century and are now found only in ecclesiastical texts and historical manuscripts.

Georgian is a phonemic alphabet — each letter corresponds to exactly one sound, with no digraphs or diacritics needed in standard orthography.

Georgian uses the Mkhedruli (მხედრული) script ^[4], which is the standard writing system for modern Georgian.

Historically, Georgian has had three related scripts: Asomtavruli (the oldest, used in inscriptions from the 5th century CE), Nuskhuri (a rounded ecclesiastical script developed in the 9th century), and Mkhedruli (the secular cursive that became dominant by the 13th century).

In 2016, all three scripts were added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as "Supra, Georgian Toast."

Georgian belongs to the Kartvelian (South Caucasian) language family ^[1] — one of the world's few language families with no established genetic relationship to any other family.

The Kartvelian family has four branches: Georgian (the only branch with millions of speakers), Svan (spoken in Svaneti), and the Zan branch containing Megrelian and Laz.

Georgian is the literary and official language that has served as the written standard for all Kartvelian peoples since the 5th century. ^[2]

Georgian has six ejective consonants ^[2]: კ (/kʼ/), პ (/pʼ/), ტ (/tʼ/), ყ (/qʼ/), წ (/tsʼ/), and ჭ (/tʃʼ/).

Ejectives are produced by closing both the glottis (the space between the vocal cords) and a point of articulation in the mouth simultaneously, then releasing the oral closure while the glottis stays closed — creating a sharp "popping" burst.

They are common in the Caucasus region and in Native American languages, but rare globally and absent from most European languages.

The Georgian script is one of the world's oldest continuously used scripts ^[1]. The earliest known dated inscription is the Bir el Qutt inscription (c. 430 CE) found in Bethlehem, Palestine.

The oldest extensive literary texts are translations of Christian works, dating to the 5th century. The script is believed to have been created or reformed by King Pharnavaz I or, according to tradition, by Mesrop Mashtots (who also created the Armenian alphabet).

Georgian script has been in continuous use for approximately 1,600 years ^[4].

Yes — Georgian Mkhedruli is written left-to-right ^[4], like Latin and Cyrillic scripts. This has been the standard direction since at least the medieval period.

The letter forms are entirely original and bear no visual resemblance to Latin, Cyrillic, or Arabic scripts.

Georgian is effectively unicase in modern usage — Mkhedruli lowercase letters are used in everyday text, while the Mtavruli (capital) forms are used for titles, headings, and stylistic emphasis. Unlike Latin, mixed-case mid-sentence capitalization (for proper nouns etc.) is not standard in Georgian.

The ISO 639-1 (two-letter) code for Georgian is ka and the ISO 639-3 (three-letter) code is kat ^[3]. The Glottolog identifier is nucl1302 (Nuclear Georgian).

Georgian is the only member of the Kartvelian family with an ISO 639-1 two-letter code, indicating its status as a major world language.

The Unicode Georgian block (U+10A0–U+10FF) encodes the Mkhedruli and archaic letters, while the Georgian Extended block (U+1C90–U+1CBF) encodes Mtavruli (capital) forms added in Unicode 11.0.

Georgian is spoken by approximately 3.7 million people as a first language ^[1], primarily in Georgia, where it is the official language.

Georgian-speaking communities also exist in Russia (especially in the Kakheti diaspora), Iran (Fereydani Georgians), Turkey, and among global diaspora communities.

Georgian also serves as a liturgical and cultural language for the Georgian Orthodox Church and is used as a second language by many speakers of Svan, Megrelian, and Laz within Georgia. ^[2]