National language of Georgia
Georgia is Sakartvelo and it means, that in Georgia we speak Kartvelian language, which we call Kartuli. The national language of Georgia is Georgian; it belongs to Kartvelian language family. It has the main language and a few dialects, like Svan, Megrelian and Laz ones. Georgian language is the only Caucasian language with an ancient literary tradition.
Over time Georgian script has evolved from its original form and has undergone three stages – Asomtavruli, Nuskhakhutsuri, and Mkhedruli.The script doesn’t have capital letters. The first scripts are more historic and are used together as upper and lower case in the writings of the Georgian Orthodox Church. Together this writing is called khutsuri (priests’ alphabet). Last one ia used in everyday life.
Georgian scripts are among the only 14 existing scripts worldwide. The ancient Georgian alphabet has been granted the national status of cultural heritage.
Curiosities: The standard greeting ‘Hello’ in Georgian, ‘Gamarjoba’, means ‘victory’ and reflects country’s complicated past of endless attacks and war. Similar to ‘Gamarjoba’, ‘good morning/evening’ in Georgian would be ‘dila/saghamo mshvidobisa‘,which means ‘morning/evening of peace.’ Unlike English and many other languages where the third person has a gender, Georgian doesn’t. When Georgians want to identify a person in a conversation, they say ‘that’ instead of he or she.
It is not difficult to learn, because you write the same you hear.