Learn to Read Georgian in 5 Days |
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26 August 2025 - Erlenbach
Sadly, Duolingo, my favorite language learning tool, has a huge blind spot when it comes to languages most Americans are not interested in learning. They brag that they have more Irish language learners than there are Irish speakers, but it's no good for Serbo-Croatian, as I've discovered on previous trips, and no good for Georgian as I've discovered preparing for my next trip to the Caucasuses. Fortunately there are books like Irakli Aleksidze's Learn to Read Georgian in 5 Days which give me an entrepôt into this non-Indoeuropean language we call Georgian, but they call Kartuli (ქართული). Much like Cyrillic developed from the alphabet created by early Christians to translate the Bible into the Slavic tongues entering Central Europe, Mkhedruli (მხედრული) developed from a script created to share it with the Kartvelian peoples of the Caucasus Mountains. Looks a bit like Tolkien's elvish, doesn't it? Aleksidze's introduction to the script is consise and contains enough exercises to fixed the letters in one's head to the point of recognition, perfect for a traveler like me looking to unlock at least the sounds on the signs around me. There are also, it seems, a fair number of loan words from European languages that I'm familiar with if I can sound them out. I'm looking forward to the challenge!
