Romanization of Georgian is the process of
transliterating the
Georgian language from the
Georgian script
The Georgian scripts are the three writing systems used to write the Georgian language: Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli. Although the systems differ in appearance, their letters share the same names and alphabetical order and are writte ...
into the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
.
Georgian national system of romanization
This system, adopted in February 2002 by the State Department of Geodesy and Cartography of Georgia and the Institute of Linguistics,
Georgian National Academy of Sciences
The Georgian National Academy of Sciences (GNAS) ( ka, საქართველოს მეცნიერებათა ეროვნული აკადემია, tr) is a main learned society of the Georgia. It was named Georgian S ...
, establishes a
transliteration
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...
system of the
Georgian letters into
Latin letters. The system was already in use, since 1998, on driving licenses. It is also used by BGN and PCGN since 2009, as well as in
Google translate
Google Translate is a multilingual neural machine translation service developed by Google to translate text, documents and websites from one language into another. It offers a website interface, a mobile app for Android and iOS, and an API ...
.
Unofficial system of romanization
Despite its popularity this system sometimes leads to ambiguity. The system is mostly used in
social networks
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for a ...
,
forums, chat rooms, etc. The system is greatly influenced by the common case-sensitive
Georgian keyboard layout that ties each key to each letter in the alphabet (seven of them: T, W, R, S, J, Z, C with the help of the ''shift'' key to make another letter).
ISO standard
ISO 9984:1996, "Transliteration of Georgian characters into Latin characters", was last reviewed and confirmed in 2010.
The guiding principles in the standard are:
* No
digraphs, i.e. one Latin letter per Georgian letter (apart from the apostrophe-like "High comma off center" (
ISO 5426), which is mapped
[Evertype.com: ISO 5426 mapping to Unicode](_blank)
Joan M. Aliprand: ''Finalized Mapping between Characters of ISO 5426 and ISO/IEC 10646-1''
The Unicode Standard: Spacing Modifier Letters
to "Combining comma above right" (U+0315) in Unicode, for
aspirated consonant
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with t ...
s, whereas
ejectives
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...
are unmarked, e.g.: კ → k, ქ → k̕
* Extended characters are mostly Latin letters with
caron
A caron (), háček or haček (, or ; plural ''háčeks'' or ''háčky'') also known as a hachek, wedge, check, kvačica, strešica, mäkčeň, varnelė, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, flying bird, inverted chevron, is a diacritic mark (� ...
(haček – ž, š, č̕, č, ǰ), with the exception of "g macron" ღ → ḡ. Archaic extended characters are ē, ō, and ẖ (h with line below).
* No capitalization, both as it does not appear in the original script, and to avoid confusion with claimed popular ad hoc transliterations of caron characters as capitals instead. (e.g. შ as S for š)
Transliteration table
Notes
References
External links
Transliteration web utility for the National and ISO transliteration of Georgian
{{ISO standards
Georgian scripts
Georgian
Georgian language
ISO standards