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UNESCO's “Atlas of Endangered Languages” and Georgia

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UNESCO's “Atlas of Endangered Languages” and Georgia UNESCO’s “Atlas of Endangered Languages” and Georgia Preamble Throughout its history Georgia, as an independent country, has found itself at the centre of events taking place in the Caucasus (This is confirmed by the latest Geopolitical processes). Georgia has experienced the assimilatory politics of almost all of the empires known to the world; Georgia has proved itself to be a safe haven and home for a number of small or numerous ethnic groups which had been oppressed in their own motherland. During its history, Georgia has built exemplary traditions of poly-ethnic co-existence of its population. Georgia is a country deeply interested in and following the joint endeavors of European countries to safeguard the vitality of endangered languages and avoid threats caused by the global processes all over the world, At the same time, we appreciate the noble aim of UNESCO’s Atlas of Endangered Languages which aims at revealing fully the contemporary state of endangered languages and ways and means of their protection. Suggestions about the data of “The Atlas of the World’s endangered languages” We would like to consider the proposal of the editors of the Atlas and express our opinion regarding the languages which, according to the Atlas, are in an endangered position in Georgia. The data concerning the Georgian (and Caucasian) language situation provided by the Atlas are either obsolete or need re-checking or correcting. At this stage we find it crucial to take into consideration a number of suggestions which seem of principle importance to us: 1. Mengrelian (Zan or Mengrelian-Laz dialect) and Svan cannot be included in the group of the endangered languages for the following reasons: a) from the point of view of origin these related language entities are historical varieties of the National Georgian language. From the sociolinguistic point of view they represent sociolects. In addition, the national identity and cultural and literacy ambitions of the population using them is realised by the Georgian national language; b) a relative decrease in the number of people speaking these language entities is not observed. As well as the historical and ethnographic regions of Mengrelia, Mengrellian is spread all over Georgia. It is spoken by more than half a million people. Similarly, Svan, apart from historical and ethnographic regions of Svaneti, is spread all over Georgia. It is spoken by 80,000 people; c) unless general, global processes are taken into consideration, no other specific tendency of decreasing the transfer of the languages from generation to generation is observed. (see the data of the project” Language situation in modern Georgia”, 1 Volkswagen-stiftung foundation. Coordinators: I .Guippert, M.Tandashvili, 2006- 2008); d) a number of projects and programmes dealing with texts, dictionaries and grammars have been carried out in Georgian Universities and research Institutes recently in order to lay down the academic foundations for the study, exploration and teaching of these (and other) language entities (see e) the special threat which these language entities are exposed to is Russian aggression towards Georgia. It is a fact that the original population, mostly speaking Mengrelian and Svan, was driven out from the territory of Abkhazia. 2. Laz (dialect of Zan or Mengrelian-Lazian) can be considered to be an endangered language entity as it is spoken by a small group of people in the territory of Georgia (not more than 1000 people). We do not possess exact statistical information about Laz people living in Turkey. 3. Part of the population which spoke historical variants of the Georgian national language nowadays resides in the territory of several countries; for example the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Turkey and Azerbeijan). Their cultural and language state is clearly not homogenous. Moreover, it does not resemble the language situation of the ethnic nationalities of the above-mentioned states living in Georgia. As this is a problem to be dealt with within the frames of International affairs between the states, we prefer to avoid presenting the data available to us regarding the problem. 4. Regarding the data about the ethnic minorities living in Georgia, we would like to make a number of suggestions. a) We would also like to note that several language entities which have been objects of exploration of Georgian linguists are omitted from the Atlas (for example, Khunzurian, Bejitian, Kistian, Laijian). On the other hand, some languages mentioned in the Atlas do not exist at all, in particular Khemshinian ( Homshetsi, Homshetsma) and their speech is not attested in Georgia; b) amongst the endangered languages in the territory of Russia and Azerbeijan, is Avarian (alternative name is Khundzuri). Part of Khundzi people reside in the Kvareli and Lagodekhi regions of Georgia . The number of people speaking this language is 976 (according to 2008 census); c) also in the territory of Georgia, ethnic Bejitians (alternative name is Kaouchian- Hunzibian) live in the Kvareli region. The number of people speaking Bejitian is 1200 (2008 census); d) Georgian linguists discovered a muslim dialect of the Tatian language (which is found in the territory of Iran). The representatives refer to themselves as Laijians, accordingly the language is called Laijian (300 people); e) according to the data of the1989 census, the number of people speaking Abkhazian in Georgia was 95,853, of whom 93,267 people lived in Abkhazia. According to the latest data, the number of Abkhazian people in Abkhazia is no more than 4,500. This can be considered to be the result of the migration caused by the armed conflict in Abkhazia in1992-1993 ; 2 f) We would like to highlight several data regarding Tsova-Tushuri (Batsburi) [See the attached tables]. A study and documentation of the current state of the Caucasian languages spread in Georgia is underway. This was made available because of the International projects as well as by the help of the Rustaveli Fund located in Georgia which financed the project “Mountainous Caucasian languages in Georgia:”. The study was made by the department of Mountainous Iberian-Caucasian languages in the A. Chikobava Research Institute of Linguistics. In the 21at Century, in most regions 90% of languages will be replaced by dominant languages (Language Vitality and Endangered UNESCO AD HOC Expert Group on Endangered languages Document submitted to the International Expert Meeting on UNOESCO Programme Safeguarding of Endangered Languages Paris, 10-12 2003). European countries, UNESCO and other international organizations admit that while assessing, planning and correcting a country’s national and language politics the historical experience which the country has gone through over the centuries of should be taken into consideration. At the same time, we should also pay attention to the objective opportunities which would enable the country to comply with the general international principles and demands which are suggested by the fundamental documents: “European Charter of Regional and Minority languages” and “European framework-convention of the protection of rights of national minorities”. According to the Atlas, the major criterion which defines such languages is the “degree” of transfer from generation to generation. This criterion points out the results caused by geopolitical, demographic and social processes. Thus special attention should be paid to significant demographic quakes, which threaten a number of state languages. If we look at the different, non-homogenous states of the languages within the frames of European countries and pay equal attention to the dynamics of local or global changes in relation to each of them, it will become easier to predict that not only those languages which do not possess a discrete alphabet or are spoken by national minorities (which is a relative term) can be included in the group of endangered languages but also ancient languages having long literary traditions which have become victims of geopolitical and demographic catastrophies. It is evident that the “threats” cannot be measured only by the fact whether or not a language presents a “small number of people” or whether it has an impressive literary past, but rather by the fact which threats this language has faced in the definite stages of its historical development. The unbiased witness of this is the history of mankind testifying the death of several languages with a long history of literacy. According to the latest data of UNESCO, 96% of world languages belong to only 3% of the world population and 50% of these languages are losing their “consumers”. By the end of this century, 90% of these languages will be replaced by the dominant languages. This “bald” statistic reveals that a number of languages of “small” nations which have contributed to civilization are also threatened by a real danger of dying out. 3 From this point of view, the Georgian language may become one of the languages to be included in the group of endangered languages. By constitution, Georgian is the national language of Georgia. In order to assess threats this language may face in the future, several crucial factors must be taken into consideration. 1) Georgian is spoken by only 4 million people. Besides, it is suffering by negative balance and a tendency to decrease. 2) the only unique space where Georgian can exist, function, develop and maintain its old spiritual culture is Georgia and the Caucasus. The concern for the fate of other small nations should be shared. However, the protection of the rights of Georgia and the Georgian language should also be the object of care of the world community. 3) Russian Imperialistic politics have caused Georgia to lose ½ of its territory (partly or wholly) during the last century. From the point of view of historical area (or, rather form the point of view of inner “bio-variety”) of this language, these territories were of major importance.
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