Mingrelian language

Mingrelian or Megrelian (მარგალური ნინა, margaluri nina; Georgian: მეგრული ენა, megruli ena) is a language spoken in northwest Georgia. The language was also called Iverian (Georgian iveriuli ena) in the early 20th century. It is spoken mostly by the Mingrelians, a regional subgroup of the Georgian people. Its ISO 639-3 code is xmf.

Distribution and status

No reliable figures exist for the number of Mingrelian native speakers, but it is estimated to be between 300,000 and 600,000. Most speakers live in the Samegrelo (Mingrelia) region of Georgia, that comprises the Odishi Hills and the Kolkheti Lowlands, from the Black Sea coast to the Svan Mountains and the Tskhenistskali River. Smaller enclaves existed in the autonomous Georgian republic of Abkhazia, but the ongoing civil unrest there has caused many Mingrelian speakers emigrate, mostly to Georgia. Their geographical distribution is relatively compact, which has helped to promote the transmission of the language between generations.

Megrelian is generally written with the Georgian alphabet, but has no written standard or official status. Almost all speakers are bilingual; they use Mingrelian mainly for familiar and informal conversation, and Georgian (or, for expatriate speakers, the local official language) for other purposes.

History

Mingrelian is one of the South Caucasian or Kartvelian languages. It is closely related to Laz, from which it has differentiated mostly in the last 500 years, after the northern (Mingrelian) and southern (Laz) communities were separated by Turkic invasions. It is somewhat less closely related to Georgian (the two branches having separated in the first millennium BC or earlier) and even more distantly related to Svan (which is believed to have branched off in the 2nd millennium BC or earlier). Mingrelian is not mutually intelligible with any of those other languages, although it is said that its speakers can recognize many Laz words.

Some linguists refer to Mingrelian and Laz as dialects of a single Zan language. Zan had already split into Mingrelian and Laz variants by early modern times, however, and it is not customary to speak of a unified Zan language today.

The oldest surviving texts in Mingrelian date from the 19th century, and are mainly ethnographical literature. The earliest linguistic studies of Mingrelian include a phonetic analysis by Aleksandre Tsagareli (1880), and grammars by Ioseb Kipshidze (1914) and Shalva Beridze (1920). From 1930 to 1938 several newspapers were published in Mingrelian, such as Kazaxishi Gazeti, Komuna, Samargalosh Chai, Narazenish Chai, and Samargalosh Tutumi. More recently, there has been some revival of the language, with the publication of dictionaries — Mingrelian-Georgian by Otar Kajaia, and Mingrelian-German by Otar Kajaia and H. Fähnrich — and poetry books by Lasha Gaxaria, Guri Otobaia, Giorgi Sichinava, Jumber Kukava, and Vaxtang Xarchilava.

Dialects

The main dialects and sub-dialects of Mingrelian are:

Zugdidi-Samurzakano or Northwest dialect
- Dzhvari
Senaki or Southeast dialect
- Martvili-Bandza
- Abasha

References

Aleksandre Tsagareli (1880), Megrelskie Etiudi, Analiz Fonetiki Megrelskogo Yazika ("Megrelian Studies — The Analysis of Phonetics of Megrelian Language"). Template:Ru icon
Ioseb Kipshidze (1914), Gramatika Megrelskogo (Iverskogo) Yazika ("Grammar of Megrelian (Iverian) Language"). Template:Ru icon
Shalva Beridze (1920), Megruli (Iveriuli) Ena ("Megrelian (Iverian) Language"). Template:Ka icon
Laurence Broers (2004), Containing the Nation, Building the State - Coping with Nationalism, Minorities, and Conflict in Post-Soviet Georgia.

External links

Mingrelian Ethnologue report
Nanashi Nina - The First ABCBook In Megrelian
TITUS Caucasica: Megrelisch Template:De icon
Otar Kajaia's Megrelian-Georgian dictionary at TITUS.
Megrelian Project at Lund University, Sweden
The Kartvelian Languages by Zurab Sarjveladze
Two sons of one mother’: Georgian, Mingrelian and the challenge of nested primordialisms (chapter 7 of book by L. Broers above).