Name of Georgia

History of Georgia
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Georgia (pronounced /ˈdʒɔrdʒə/ ( listen)) is an exonym for the nation in the Caucasus whose self-designation (autonym) is Sakartvelo (Georgian: საქართველო, [sɑkʰɑrtʰvɛlɔ] ( listen)). The exonym has been variously explained as being derived from the Greek γεωργός ("tiller of the land"), the name of St. George, and from ancient Persian designations of the Georgians. The native name is derived from the core central Georgian region of Kartli – Iberia of the Classical and Byzantine sources – around which the early medieval cultural and political unity of the Georgians was formed.

Autonym

The native Georgian name for the country is Sakartvelo (საქართველო). The word consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i (sing., ქართველ-ი), 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.^[1]

The earliest reference to "Sakartvelo" occurs in the c. 800 Georgian chronicle by Pseudo-Juansher. 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/Iberia and Apkhazeti/Abasgia under Bagrat III in 1008. However, it was not until the early 13th century that the term fully entered regular official usage.^[1]

The memory and dream of a united Georgia – Sakartvelo – persisted even after the political catastrophe of the 15th century when the Georgian kingdom fell apart to form three separate kingdoms: Kartli, Kakheti, and Imereti, and five principalities: Samtskhe, Mingrelia, Guria, Svaneti, and Abkhazia. Thus, the later kings of Kartli 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.^[1]

After more than a century of the Imperial Russian rule, on May 26, 1918, the country was reincarnated as საქართველოს დემოკრატიული რესპუბლიკა sakartvelos demokratiuli respublika – the Democratic Republic of Georgia. It became საქართველოს საბჭოთა სოციალისტური რესპუბლიკა sakartvelos sabchota socialisturi respublika – the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic – on February 25, 1921, and საქართველოს რესპუბლიკა sakartvelos respublika – the Republic of Georgia – on November 14, 1990. According to the 1995 constitution, the nation's official name is Sakartvelo, with "Georgia" as its English equivalent.^[2]

Exonym

Language	Georgia
Georgian	საქართველო sakart'velo
Abkhaz	Қырҭтәыла ķyrţtwyla
Armenian	Վրաստան Vrastan, Վիրք Virk'
Arabic	جورجيا juurjiya
Azerbaijani	Gürcüstan Gyurjustan
Belarusian	Грузія Hrúziya
Bulgarian	Грузия Grúziya
Chinese (traditional)	格魯吉亞 Gélǔjíyà
Chinese (simplified)	格鲁吉亚 Gélǔjíyà
Estonian	Gruusia
Persian	گرجستان Gorjestân
Greek	Γεωργία Georgia
Hebrew	גרוזיה Grúzia
Japanese	グルジア Gurujia
Korean	그루지야 Geurujiya
Latvian	Gruzija
Lithuanian	Gruzija
Ossetian	Гуырдзыстон Gwyrdzyston
Russian	Грузия Grúziya
Turkish	Gürcistan Gyurjistan
Ukrainian	Грузія Hrúziya
Yiddish	גרוזיע Gruzye

The European "Georgia" probably stems from the Persian-Arabic designation of the Georgians – gurğ, ğurğ – which reached the Western European crusaders and pilgrims in the Holy Land who rendered the name as Georgia (also Jorgania, Giorginia, etc.) and explained its origin by the popularity of St. George among the Georgians. This explanation is offered, among others, by Jacques de Vitry and Franz Ferdinand von Troilo.^[3] Another theory, popularized by the likes of Jean Chardin, semantically linked "Georgia" to Greek and Latin roots, respectively, γεωργός ("tiller of the land") and georgicus ("agricultural"). 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).^[4]

In the 19th century, scholars first put the popular European etymologies in question. Marie-Félicité Brosset favored the derivation of the name Georgia from that of the river Mtkvari via Kuros-Cyrus-Kura-Djurzan.^[5]

Law on "Change of the Name of Georgian SSR". November 14, 1990

According to several modern scholars, "Georgia" seems to have been borrowed in the 11th or 12th centuries from the Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān and Arabic ĵurĵan/ĵurzan, derived from the New Persian gurğ/gurğān, itself stemming from the Ancient Iranian and Middle Persian vrkān/waručān of unclear origin, but resembling the eastern trans-Caspian toponym Gorgan, which comes from the Middle Persian varkâna, "land of the wolves". This might have been of the same etymology as the Armenian Virk' (Վիրք) and a source of the Greco-Roman rendition Iberi (Ἴβηρες), the ethnonym already known to them as a designation of the Iberian peoples of the Iberian Peninsula.^[6][7]

The Russian exonym Gruziya (Грузия ['gruzʲɪjə]) is also of Perso-Arabic origin. It first occurs in the travel records of Ignatiy Smolnyanin as gurzi (гурзи) (1389) and Afanasy Nikitin as gurzynskaya zemlya (Гурзыньская земля, "Gurzin land") (1466-72).^[8] The Russian name was brought into several other languages, such as Bulgarian, Belarusian, Chinese, Croatian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Kyrgyz, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Macedonian, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Uyghur, Yiddish and others.^[9] It also entered the contemporary Hebrew as גרוזיה ("Gruz-ia"). It coexisted with the names גאורגיה ("Gheorghia" with two hard g's) and גורג'יה (Gurjia), when "Gruzia" took over in the 1970s, probably due to a massive immigration of bilingual Georgian-Russian Jews to Israel at that time. In August 2005 the Georgian ambassador to Israel Lasha Zhvania asked that the Hebrew speakers refer to his country as "Georgia" גאורגיה and abandon the name "Gruzia".^[10] Similar request was issued by Georgia, in December 2009, to Lithuania, asking to be called "Georgija" instead of "Gruzija"; the request was forwarded to the Commission of the Lithuanian Language.^[11]

In June 2011, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia said South Korea had agreed to refer to the country as “Georgia” instead of the Russian-influenced “Gruzya” and the government of Georgia was continuing talks with other countries on the issue.^[9]

References

1. ^ ^{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
2. ^ Constitution of Georgia. Chapter 1. Article 1.3. Parliament of Georgia. Retrieved on June 28, 2009
3. ^ Peradze, Gregory. "The Pilgrims' derivation of the name Georgia". Georgica, Autumn, 1937, nos. 4 & 5, 208-209
4. ^ Romer, Frank E. (ed., 1998), Pomponius Mela's Description of the World, p. 72. University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0472084526
5. ^ 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 0710069596
6. ^ Lang, David Marshall (1966), The Georgians, pp. 5-6. Praeger Publishers
7. ^ Khintibidze, Elguja (1998), The Designations of the Georgians and Their Etymology, pp. 29-30. Tbilisi State University Press, ISBN 5511007757 (A New Theory on the Etymology of the Designations of the Georgians (Excerpt from the book)) (Google Cache)
8. ^ (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)
9. ^ ^{a b} Tbilisi Wants to Be Referred as 'Georgia' Not 'Gruzya'. Civil Georgia. June 27, 2011.
10. ^ "Georgia on his mind: Republic's ambassador demands Hebrew name change". Haaretz.com. 2005-08-08. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=610079. Retrieved 2009-06-28. 
11. ^ (Lithuanian) "Gruzija nori būti vadinama „Georgija“". delfi.lt. 2009-12-02. http://www.delfi.lt/news/daily/lithuania/gruzija-nori-buti-vadinama-georgija.d?id=26304293. Retrieved 2009-12-02. 

Bibliography

• (Georgian) Paichadze, Giorgi (ed., 1993), საქართველოსა და ქართველების აღმნიშვნელი უცხოური და ქართული ტერმინოლოგია (Foreign and Georgian designations for Georgia and Georgians). Metsniereba, ISBN 5-520-01504-X