Georgian Language. The Georgian language, which is also spoken by the Mingrelians, Lazians, and the Suani, belongs to the Iberian family. The chief characteristics of it are as follows. Its alphabet con- sists of thirty-five letters ; it has no articles ; the sub- stantives have eight cases and no genders ; the adjec- tives, when associated with nouns, are indeclinable, but when they stand by themselves are declined ; the comparative is formed by tlie prefix u and the suffix si, and cardinals are obtained bj' prefixing me to the ordinals. It possesses eight conjugations with several minor subdivisions, and the different persons are indi- cated by terminations and personal prefixes ; it has several forms for the prreterite and the future tenses, and only one form for the present tense ; three modes, viz. indicative, imperative, and the participle, and supplies the place of the infinitive by a verbal noun ; it has postpositions governing different cases, in addi- tion to the prepositions, and can multiply verbs to any extent by the terminations eli'ha and ola, form ab- stracts from adjectives by the terminations oba and eba, as well as active personal nouns, adjectives — both active and passive — and diminutives, by various ter- minations and prefixes, and its construction allows many liberties. From the venerable old Georgian language a dialect developed itself, in the course of time, by the introduction into it of many AiTnenian, Greek, Turkish, and other foreign words, and by the vitiation of the pronunciation and spelling of many expressions. The two dialects have distinct alpha- bets : the alphal)et in which tlie old Georgian is writ- ten is called A'»3Mrj, i. e.the sacred, and consists of the letters invented by Miesrol); and the alphabet of the modern Georgian is called Keduidi, and is supposed to have been invented b}' the Geoi'gians themselves in the 14th century. The old language is the ecclesias- tical or literar3', and is employed in all sacred and lit- erary writings, while the modern is the civil dialect, or the dialect of common life (linr/tia vulgaris). Com- pare Ersch und Gruber's Encykhypddie, s. v. Georgier, ]). 192; Eichhorn, AUgemelne Bibliothek der hiblischen L'liratur, i, loO sq. — Kitto, s. v.
Georgian Version. This is one of the oldest versions of the Bible extant.
I. Name, Date, and Source of this Version. — The Georgians call their Bilde by different names — 1. Bib- bia, i. e. the Bible : 2. Zminda Zerill, tlie holy Scrip- ture; .1. Samldo Z<:rili. tlie divine Scriptures; 4. Zigh- ni Zuelisa da nkalio aghllcmisa, tlie l)onks of the O. and N. T. i and, 5. Dahadeba, Genesis, after the first book of the Bible. The version is supposed to have been made about A.D. 570, when the Georgians, stimulated by the example of the Armenians [see Armenian Version], sent young men of talent to Greece to study tlie Greelc language, who, on their return, trans- lated the Scriptures and liturgicai books of the Greek Church. The translation of the 0. T. is made from the
Sept., and of the N. T. from Greek MSS. of the Con- stantinopolitan family, and is composed in the ecclesi- astical or ancient dialect. See Georgian Language.
II. Text and Edit Imis of the Veision.- — This venera- ble version has shared in all the troubles to which Georgia lias been subject. The entire books of Mac- cabees and Ecclesiasticus were lost in the many revo- lutions of the conntiy, passages disappeared from dif- ferent parts of the volume, and the whole text got into a state of confusion. It was only in the begin- ning of tlie 18th centurj' that prince Vaktaiigh pub- lished at Tiflis the Psalms, the Prophets, and tlie New Testament, and split up the text into chapters and verses. Shortly after, prince Arcil, uncle of prince Vaktangh, who fled from Kartel to Russia, undertook a revision of this version, making it conformable to the Russian translation as it tlien was, and divided it onh' into chapters, because the Russian translation was divided into chapters only. But this prince only lived to cairj' through the revision from Genesis to the Prophets, and to translate from the Russian Bible the lost books of Maccabees and Ecclesiasticus. His son, prince Vakuset, was, however, induced by the solicitations of his brother, prince Bachar, and the Georgian clergy resident in Russia, to continue the work of revision. He made the text conform still more to the Russian translation, newly revised accord- ing to the command of Peter the Great, supplied from this translation all the passages which were wanting in the Georgian version, made also the portions wliicli his father had puldished conformable to this transla- tion, and divided the whole into chapters and verses. He had Georgian types cast at Moscow, and at once began printing in that city ; the correction of the press he committed to four native Georgians, and the first edition of the entire Georgian Bible appeared in 1743, fol., prince Bachar, brother of the editor, defraying the entire expense. From this edition the Moscow Bible Society reprinted the N. T. in 181 G, 4to, under the su- perintendence of the Georgian metropolitan Ion and of archbishop Pafnut, with types cast from the very ma- trices which had been used for the former edition, and wliich had escaped the conflagration of the city at the time of Napoleon's invasion. Anotlier edition was published in 1818, in the civil character, 4to. It is said that there have appeared more recent editions of va- rious portions of this version both at Tiflis and in Rus- sia, but tliere is no particular account of thein.