Khutsuri (Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri)

The Georgian alphabet, Khutsuri, is one of the oldest surviving alphabets in the world. It is thought to have been developed by King Pharnavaz I of Iberia in the 3rd century BC. The alphabet consists of 33 letters, including 7 vowels and 26 consonants. Khutsuri is written from left to right and has no upper or lower case. Each letter has its own unique shape, which makes it easy to read and write. The Khutsuri alphabet is used to write the Georgian language, which is spoken by approximately 4 million people in Georgia, as well as in parts of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine. Georgian is a member of the South Caucasian language family, which also includes Armenian and Azeri. Khutsuri is written in two main scripts: Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri. Asomtavruli is the older of the two scripts and was used for inscriptions in stone or metal. Nuskhuri was developed later and is used for handwritten texts. Asomtavruli consists of all capital letters, while Nuskhuri has upper and lower case letters. Asomtavruli is still used today for headings and signs, while Nuskhuri is used for body text. Georgian is a highly inflected language, which means that words can change their form to indicate grammatical information such as case, gender and number. For example, the word for ‘book’, kit’ebi, changes to kit’eb in the accusative case (when it is the object of a verb) and kit’ebze in the dative case (when it is the recipient of an action). The Georgian alphabet has been adapted for use in other languages, such as Mingrelian, Laz and Svan. These languages are all spoken in Georgia, but have different writing systems.