There is as yet no history of Georgia in the sense in which we now understand the word. Those works which are dignified with the name are merely more or less trustworthy collections of materials, which in their present form produce only a feeling of bewilderment in the reader. We trust that a man worthy of the task will seriously take the annals of his nation in hand, and present them to the world in an intelligible form; and we also cherish the hope that he will not finish his task without being able to chronicle the new birth of a strong, independent state worthy to maintain the fame of Irakli and Tamara.
THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF GEORGIA.
The origin of the Kartlian or Kartvelian language is still involved in some doubt, but the general opinion of philologists seems to be that it does not belong to the Indo-European family, although it has been powerfully influenced by Zend, Sanskrit, Persian, and Armenian. The ancient speech of the country is preserved to us in the ecclesiastical rituals and books of devotion, which are written in characters differing very considerably from the civil alphabet, the “war hand,” the invention of the latter being ascribed to King Pharnavaz I., a contemporary of Alexander the Great. The Khutsuri, or ecclesiastical character, bears a striking resemblance to Armenian; an excellent specimen of it may be seen in the British Museum Library, in the famous Moscow Bible of 1743, recently purchased. The number of letters is the same in both alphabets, viz. thirty-eight, and the modern alphabet is as follows:—
| ა | a | ს | s |
| ბ | b | ტ | t |
| გ | g | უ | u (oo) |
| დ | d | ჳ | vi (vee) |
| ე | e | ფ | ph (p followed by sound of h) |
| ვ | v | ქ | k |
| ზ | z | ღ | gh (guttural) |
| ჱ | é (short) | ყ | (something like a guttural k) |
| თ | th (not English th but t followed by sound of h) | შ | sh |
| ი | i (English ee) | ჩ | ch |
| კ | c | ც | tz |
| ლ | l | ძ | dz |
| მ | m | წ | ts |
| ნ | n | ჭ | dch |
| ჲ | i (short) | ხ | kh |
| ო | o | ჴ | khh |
| პ | p | ჯ | j |
| ჟ | zh | ჰ | h |
| რ | r | ჵ | ho |
The orthography is purely phonetic. There is very little difference between the language of the sacred books and that of to-day, not nearly so much as between Anglo-Saxon and English; but many foreign words have been introduced in modern times.
The earliest specimens of Georgian literature which have come down to us are translations of the Scriptures, and theological works written under the influence of the Greek clergy, who, until the eleventh century, occupied almost all the high ecclesiastical offices in the land.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era the relations between Georgia and Greece were of the most intimate character. The young nobles of the court of King David the Renewer and his immediate successors frequented the schools of Athens, and brought back with them Platonic and Aristotelian teachings which exerted a very powerful influence on the intellectual and social life of that period, and prepared the way for the golden age of Georgian literature, which dawned on the accession of Queen Tamara. Sulkhan Orbeliani, in the preface to his dictionary, compiled early in the eighteenth century, says that he consulted translations of Proklus, Platonicus, Nemesis, Aristotle, Damascenus, Plato, Porphyry, and many other Greek writers. If these MSS. were still extant, they might prove valuable to classical scholars.
RUSTAVELI.