Everything about Mingrelian Language totally explained
Mingrelian, or
Megrelian (მარგალური ნინა,
margaluri nina;,
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's 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 isn't
mutually intelligible with any of those other languages, although it's 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 isn't 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
Heinz 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
- Senaki or Southeast dialect
Famous speakers
Lavrenti Beria, Soviet dictator Stalin's chief of secret police
Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, one of the most influential Georgian writers of the 20th century
Zviad Gamsakhurdia, first president of post-Soviet GeorgiaFurther Information
Get more info on 'Mingrelian Language'.
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