Georgian

Also known as: Georgian, Kartuli

Georgian (ქართული Kartuli) is the sole official language of Georgia (~3.7M speakers in Georgia + ~500K diaspora in Russia, Turkey, Israel, USA, EU). It is the largest member of the Kartvelian language family — an isolate family of the southern Caucasus, unrelated to any other major language family — together with its sister languages Mingrelian (xmf), Svan (sva), and Laz (lzz, in Turkey). Georgian is famously written in its own unique script: three historical alphabets coexist as a single writing system since 2016 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage recognition — Asomtavruli (5th c. CE majuscule), Nuskhuri (9th c. ecclesiastical minuscule), and Mkhedruli (11th c. secular, the modern standard 33-letter alphabet). Linguistically distinctive: complex consonant clusters (e.g. გვფრცქვნი gvprtskvni "you peel us," 8 consonants in a row), split-ergative case marking, and polypersonal verbal agreement encoding subject + direct object + indirect object simultaneously. Georgian literary tradition since the 5th c. CE (Christian Bible translations); Shota Rustaveli's 12th-c. epic "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" is the national literary canon.