Etymologies
Georgia
(
JOR
-j?
) is the
Western
exonym
for
the country
in the
Caucasus
natively known as
Sakartvelo
(
Georgian
:
??????????
[sak?a?t??elo]
ⓘ
). The Armenian exonym is
Vrastan
(
Armenian
:
???????
[v???s?t?n]
); predominantly
Muslim
nations refer to it as
Gurjistan
or its many similar variations; while in mostly
Slavic
languages it is
Gruziya
.
The first mention of the name
spelled
as "Georgia" was recorded in
Italian
on the
mappa mundi
of
Pietro Vesconte
dated AD 1320.
[1]
In early appearances in the Latin world, the name was not always written in the same transliteration, the first consonant originally being spelt with
J
, as
Jorgia
.
[2]
Both
endonym and exonym
for the country are derived from the same
state-forming
core and central Georgian region of
Kartli
(known as
Iberia
to the
Classical
and
Byzantine
sources) around which the early medieval cultural and political unity of the
Georgians
was formed.
All exonyms are likely derived from
gor??n
(
?????
), the
Persian
designation of the Georgians, evolving from
Parthian
wur??n
(
????????
) and
Middle Persian
wiru??n
(
????????????
), rooting out from
Old Persian
vrk?n
(
??????????
) meaning "the land of the
wolves
". This is also reflected in
Old Armenian
virk
(
????
), it being a source of
Ancient Greek
ib?ri?
(
?βηρ?α
), that entered
Latin
as
Hiberia
. The transformation of
vrk?n
into
gor??n
and alteration of
v
into
g
was a phonetic phenomenon in the
word formation
of
Proto-Aryan
and ancient
Iranian languages
. All exonyms are simply phonetic variations of the same root
vrk/varka
(
??????
) meaning
wolf
.
[3]
The full, official name of the country is simply "Georgia", as specified in the
Georgian constitution
which reads "
Georgia
is the name of the state of Georgia."
[4]
Before the 1995 constitution came into force the country's name was the
Republic of Georgia
. Since 2005
[5]
the
Georgian Government
works actively to remove the Russian-derived exonym
Gruziya
from usage around the world.
[6]
Endonym
[
edit
]
The native Georgian name for the country is
Sakartvelo
(
??????????
). The word consists of two parts. Its root,
kartvel-i
(
???????-?
), first attested in the
Old Georgian
inscription of Umm Leisun
in
Jerusalem
, originally referred to an inhabitant of the core central Georgian region of
Kartli
?
Iberia
of the
Classical
and
Byzantine
sources. By the early 9th century, the meaning of "Kartli" was expanded to other areas of medieval Georgia held together by religion, culture, and language. The Georgian
circumfix
sa
-X-
o
is a standard geographic construction designating "the area where X dwell", where X is an
ethnonym
.
[7]
The earliest reference to "Sakartvelo" occurs in the
c.
800
Georgian chronicle
by
Juansher Juansheriani
.
?? ??????? ????? ?????? ???????, ?????? ??? ????? ??? ???????? ???????????? ?? ????????????, ?? ??????? ?????? ?????????? ?????. ?? ?????? ?????? ???????????.
— Life of King of Kings
Vakhtang Gorgasali
Within the next 200 years, this designation was reconfigured so that it came to signify the all-Georgian realm which came into existence with the political
unification of Kartli and Apkhazeti
under
Bagrat III
in 1008. However, it was not until the early 13th century that the term fully entered regular official usage.
[7]
The memory and dream of a united Georgia ? Sakartvelo ? persisted even after the political catastrophe of the 15th century when the
Kingdom of Georgia
fell apart
to form three separate kingdoms:
Kartli
,
Kakheti
, and
Imereti
, and five principalities:
Samtskhe-Saatabago
,
Mingrelia
,
Guria
,
Svaneti
, and
Abkhazia
. Thus, the later kings did not relinquish the titles of the all-Georgian monarchs whose legitimate successors they claimed to be. The idea of all-Georgian unity also dominated history-writing of the early 18th-century Georgian scholar and a member of the
royal family
, Prince
Vakhushti
, whose
Description of the Kingdom of Georgia
(
agtsera sameposa sakartvelosa
) had a noticeable influence on the latter-day conception of Sakartvelo. Although Georgia was politically divided among competing kingdoms and principalities during Vakhushti's lifetime, the scholar viewed the past and present of these breakaway polities as parts of the history of a single nation.
[7]
Georgia fell under successive
Ottoman
,
Iranian
(
Safavid
,
Afsharids
,
Qajars
), and
Russian
rule during the 15th to 19th centuries. It was re-united as the short-lived
Democratic Republic of Georgia
(
??????????? ???????????? ??????????
sakartvelos demokratiuli respublika
) on May 26, 1918, transformed into the
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic
(
??????????? ??????? ???????????? ??????????
sakartvelos sabchota socialisturi respublika
) in 1921, and eventually gaining independence as the Republic of Georgia (
??????????? ??????????
sakartvelos respublika
) on November 14, 1990.
According to the 1995
constitution
, the nation's official name is
??????????
sakartvelo
.
[9]
In other
Kartvelian languages
, like
Mingrelian
, Georgia is referred as
????????
sakortuo
, in
Laz
it's
????????
okortura
, when in
Svan
it uses the same name as Georgian does,
??????????
sakartvelo
. This same root is also adopted in
Abkhaz
and Georgia is referred as
?ыр?т?ыла
Kyr?twyla
(i.e. Sakartvelo).
Exonyms
[
edit
]
First mention of the country spelled as
Georgia
, the world map of
Pietro Vesconte
, AD 1320.
Iberia
[
edit
]
One theory on the etymology of the name Iberia, proposed by
Giorgi Melikishvili
, was that it was derived from the contemporary
Armenian
designation for Georgia,
Virk?
(
????
, and
Ivirk?
?????
and
Iverk?
?????
), which itself was connected to the word Sver (or Svir), the
Kartvelian
designation for Georgians.
[10]
The letter "s" in this instance served as a prefix for the root word "Ver" (or "Vir"). Accordingly, in following
Ivane Javakhishvili
's theory, the ethnic designation of "Sber", a variant of Sver, was derived the word "Hber" ("Hver") (and thus Iberia) and the Armenian variants, Veria and Viria.
[10]
The
Armenian
name of Georgia is
???????
Vrastan
,
????
Virk
(i.e.
Iberia
). Ethnic
Georgians
are referred in Armenian as
????????
(
Vratsiner
) literally meaning
Iberians
.
Georgia
[
edit
]
The European "Georgia" probably stems from the
Persian
designation of the Georgians ?
gur?
(
???
),
?ur?
? which reached the
Western European
crusaders and pilgrims in the
Holy Land
who rendered the name as
Georgia
(also
Jorgania
,
Giorginia
, etc.) and, erroneously,
[11]
explained its origin by the popularity of
St. George
(
Tetri Giorgi
) among the Georgians. This explanation is offered, among others, by
Jacques de Vitry
and Franz Ferdinand von Troilo.
[12]
Another theory, popularized by the likes of
Jean Chardin
, semantically linked "Georgia" to Greek
γεωργ??
("tiller of the land"). The supporters of this explanation sometimes referred to classical authors, in particular
Pliny
and
Pomponius Mela
. The "Georgi" mentioned by these authors (Pliny, IV.26, VI.14; Mela,
De Sita Orb
. i.2, & 50; ii.1, & 44, 102.) were merely agricultural tribes, so named to distinguish them from their unsettled and pastoral neighbors on the other side of the river
Panticapea
(in
Taurica
).
[13]
In the 19th century,
Marie-Felicite Brosset
favored the derivation of the name Georgia from that of the river
Mtkvari
via Kuros-Cyrus-Kura-Djurzan.
[14]
According to several modern scholars, "Georgia" seems to have been borrowed in the 11th or 12th century from the
Syriac
gurz-?n
/
gurz-iy?n
and
Arabic
?ur?an
/
?urzan
, derived from the
New Persian
gur?
/
gur??n
, itself stemming from the
Middle Persian
waru??n
of unclear origin, but resembling the eastern trans-
Caspian
toponym
Gorgan
, which comes from the
Old Persian
varkana-
, "land of the wolves". This might have been of the same etymology as the
Armenian
Virk'
(
????
) and a source of the Greco-Roman rendition
Iberi
(
?βηρε?
), the ethnonym already known to them as a designation of the
Iberian peoples
of the
Iberian Peninsula
.
[15]
[16]
Gruziya
[
edit
]
The
Russian
exonym Gruziya (Russian:
Грузия
,
IPA:
[??ruz??j?]
ⓘ
) is also of Persian origin, from
Persian
???????
Gorjestan
(Turkish
Gurcistan
,
Ossetian
:
Гуырдзыстон
Gwyrdzyston
, Mongolian
Г?рж
Gurj
).
The Russian name first occurs in the travel records of Ignatiy Smolnyanin as
gurzi
(
гурзи
) (1389).
А въ церковь ту вл?зщи, ино направ?
Гурз?йскаа
служба,
Гурз?и
служатъ.
There is a church and there is a
Gurz
[i.e. Georgian]
liturgy
,
Gurzis
[i.e. Georgians] serve there.
—Travels in Jerusalem
Afanasy Nikitin
calls Georgia as
gurzynskaya zemlya
(
Гурзыньская земля
, "Gurzin land") (1466?72).
[17]
Да Севаст?и губ?, да
Гурзынской земли
добро обил?ю вс?м; да Торская земля обилна.
And in Sevastia, and in the
Gurzin land
[i.e. Georgian land] everything is in abundance, and Torsk land [i.e. Turkish land] is abundant.
—
A Journey Beyond the Three Seas
As a result of permutation of sounds "Gurz" transformed into "Gruz" and eventually "Gruz-iya". The Russian name was brought into several
Slavic languages
(Belarusian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Macedonian, Polish, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Ukrainian) as well as other languages historically in contact with the
Russian Empire
and/or the
Soviet Union
(such as Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Hungarian, Yiddish, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Uyghur, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese).
[18]
Abandoning the name
[
edit
]
In August 2005, the Georgian ambassador to Israel
Lasha Zhvania
asked that the Hebrew speakers refer to his country as
Georgia
???????
and abandon the name
Gruzia
. The name entered the contemporary
Hebrew
as
??????
(
Gruz-ia
). It coexisted with the names
???????
(
Gheorghia
with two hard
g'
s) and
????'??
(
Gurjia
), when
Gruzia
took over in the 1970s, probably due to a
massive immigration
of bilingual Georgian-Russian Jews to Israel at that time. Georgia's request was approved and now Israel refers to the country as
Gheorghia
.
[19]
In June 2011, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia
said
South Korea
had agreed to refer to the country as
조지아
(
Jojia
) instead of the Russian-influenced
그루지야
(
Geurujiya
) and the government of Georgia was continuing talks with other countries on the issue.
In April 2015, Japan changed the official Japanese name for Georgia from
Gurujia
(
グルジア
)
, which derives from the Russian term
Gruziya
, to
J?jia
(
ジョ?ジア
)
, which derives from the English term "Georgia".
[20]
[21]
In May 2018, Lithuania switched to
Sakartvelas
, which is derived from Georgia's original native name
Sakartvelo
. The new name would be an alternative for Georgia alongside the long-established
Gruzija
.
[22]
[23]
Georgia had initially asked for a change in December 2009 to be called
Georgija
instead of
Gruzija
; the request was forwarded to the
Commission of the Lithuanian Language
and was declined at that time.
[24]
In 2010, then-
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia
Grigol Vashadze
during his official visit to Lithuania promised to "destroy the name Gruziya" and asked the Lithuanian authorities for a name switch.
[25]
Lithuanian authorities made the switch for
Independence Day of Georgia
and described it as a "great gift to the
Georgian people
" when Georgia celebrated the 100th anniversary of the declaration of independence of the
First Republic of Georgia
.
[26]
As a gesture of appreciation, Georgia also changed Lithuania's Russian-derived name of
Litva
(
Russian
:
Литва
) to its native
Lietuva
.
[27]
Accordingly, the Embassy of Georgia in Lithuania changed its name from
Gruzijos Ambasada
to
Sakartvelo Ambasada
.
[28]
However, as of 2019, the traditional name
Gruzija
was still more popular than the new name in media and on social networks.
[29]
On December 21, 2020, the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language (VLKK) decided that the name
Sakartvelas
should be used in all official Lithuanian-language documents.
[30]
In June 2019, during the
2019 Georgian protests
, former Ukrainian president
Petro Poroshenko
called upon the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
to change
Gruziya
for
Sakartvelo
.
[31]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Rouben Galichian
(2007) Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps: Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. pp. 188?189
- ^
Boeder; et al. (2002). Philology, typology and language structure. Peter Lang. p. 65.
ISBN
978-0820459912
- ^
Khintibidze, Elguja
(1998), The Designations of the Georgians and Their Etymology, pp. 85-86-87,
Tbilisi State University
Press,
ISBN
5-511-00775-7
- ^
"Article 2.1"
,
Constitution of Georgia
, Legislative Herald of Georgia,
'Georgia' is the name of the state of Georgia.
- ^
Mikaberidze, Alexander (2015) Historical Dictionary of Georgia (2 ed.). p.4, Rowman & Littlefield,
ISBN
978-1-4422-4146-6
- ^
"Government changing official pronunciation of Georgia"
,
The Japan Times
, April 15, 2015, archived from
the original
on 2015-04-18
- ^
a
b
c
Rapp, Stephen H. (2003),
Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography: Early Texts And Eurasian Contexts
, pp. 419-423. Peeters Publishers,
ISBN
90-429-1318-5
- ^
Rapp, Stephen H. (2003) Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium: Subsidia, Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography: Early Texts and Eurasian Contexts, Peeters Publishers, pp. 425-426
- ^
Constitution of Georgia. Chapter 1. Article 1.3
.
Parliament of Georgia
. Retrieved on June 28, 2009
- ^
a
b
(in Armenian)
Yeremyan, Suren T
.
≪??????≫
(Iberia).
Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia
. vol. iv. Yerevan, Armenian SSR:
Armenian Academy of Sciences
, 1978, p. 306.
- ^
GEORGIA i. The land and the people
- ^
Peradze, Gregory
. "The Pilgrims' derivation of the name Georgia".
Georgica
, Autumn, 1937, nos. 4 & 5, 208-209
- ^
Romer, Frank E. (ed., 1998),
Pomponius Mela's Description of the World
, p. 72.
University of Michigan Press
,
ISBN
0-472-08452-6
- ^
Allen, William Edward David
(1932), A History of the Georgian People: From the Beginning Down to the Russian Conquest in the Nineteenth Century, p. 369. Taylor & Francis,
ISBN
0-7100-6959-6
- ^
Lang, David Marshall
(1966),
The Georgians
, pp. 5-6. Praeger Publishers
- ^
Khintibidze, Elguja (1998),
The Designations of the Georgians and Their Etymology
, pp. 29-30.
Tbilisi State University
Press,
ISBN
5-511-00775-7
(
A New Theory on the Etymology of the Designations of the Georgians (Excerpt from the book)
Archived
2007-09-30 at the
Wayback Machine
) (
Google Cache
)
- ^
(in Russian)
Vesmer, MAx
(trans.
Trubachyov, Oleg
, 1987), ≪Этимологический словарь русского языка≫ (
Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language
), vol. 1, p. 464. Progress: Moscow (
Online version
)
- ^
"Tbilisi Wants to Be Referred as 'Georgia' Not 'Gruzya'
"
.
Civil Georgia
. June 27, 2011. Archived from
the original
on 2020-02-16.
- ^
"Georgia on his mind: Republic's ambassador demands Hebrew name change"
. Haaretz.com. 2005-08-08. Archived from
the original
on 2012-10-22
. Retrieved
2009-06-28
.
- ^
Government changing official pronunciation of Georgia
The Japan Times
- ^
?名呼?の?更(グルジア)
.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
(in Japanese). 22 April 2015.
Archived
from the original on 29 August 2019.
- ^
Lithuania Moves to Stop Calling Georgia by its Russian Name
- ^
"Lithuania Adopts Sakartvelas as Alternative Name for Georgia"
.
Civil Georgia
. 3 May 2018
. Retrieved
23 July
2018
.
- ^
Jackevi?ius, M.
Gruzija nori b?ti vadinama "Georgija"
- ^
"Георгийский" министр пообещал уничтожить "Грузию"
Lenta
- ^
Lithuania Moves To Change Official Name For Georgia To Sakartvelo From Gruzia
- ^
Samantha Guthrie
Lithuania Gets a New Name in Georgian
Georgia Today
, 25 May 2018
- ^
"Authentic name of Georgia 'Sakartvelas' to be officially used in Lithuanian Language"
.
Georgia First Channel
. May 3, 2018. Archived from
the original
on 21 November 2020.
- ^
"Sakartvelo catching on ? Georgia's historic name growing in popularity in Lithuania"
.
LRT
. 19 August 2019.
- ^
"Lithuania approves Sakartvelo as official name for Georgia"
.
LRT English
. 11 January 2021.
- ^
"Порошенко заклика? МЗС Укра?ни "перейменувати" Груз?ю на Сакартвело"
.
www.ukrinform.ua
(in Ukrainian). 2019-06-24
. Retrieved
2023-12-16
.
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- (in Georgian)
Paichadze, Giorgi (ed., 1993), ???????????? ?? ??????????? ??????????? ??????? ?? ??????? ???????????? (
Foreign and Georgian designations for Georgia and Georgians
). Metsniereba,
ISBN
5-520-01504-X
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