The Karto-Zan languages, also known as Georgian-Zan, are a branch of the Kartvelian language family that contains the Georgian and

Zan languages The Zan languages, or Zanuri ( ka, ზანური ენები) or Colchidian, are a branch of the Kartvelian languages constituted by the Mingrelian and Laz languages. The grouping is disputed as some Georgian linguists consider the two ...

. The

Svan language Svan ( ''lušnu nin''; ka, სვანური ენა, tr) is a Kartvelian language spoken in the western Georgian region of Svaneti primarily by the Svan people. With its speakers variously estimated to be between 30,000 and 80,000, the ...

forms the other branch of the Kartvelian family, showing characteristic differences from the Karto-Zan group. It has been hypothesized that the divergence between Svan and

Proto-Kartvelian The Proto-Kartvelian language, or Common Kartvelian ( ka, წინარექართველური ენა, tr), is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Kartvelian languages, which was spoken by the ancestors of th ...

goes back as far as the 19th century BCE. Georgian and Zan on the other hand diversified from

Proto-Georgian-Zan Proto-Georgian-Zan (also referred to as Proto-Karto-Zan) is a reconstructed language which is the common ancestor of Karto-Zan languages. It had diverged from Proto-Kartvelian The Proto-Kartvelian language, or Common Kartvelian ( ka, წინ� ...

during the 7th century BCE. Both languages share common archaic words related to metallurgy and agriculture absent in Svan.

Classification

The Karto-Zan languages constitute a branch of the Kartvelian language family.

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is a bibliographic database of the world's lesser-known languages, developed and maintained first at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (between 2015 and 2020 at the Max Planck Institute f ...

internally divides the Karto-Zan group into the Georgic languages, which contain Georgian and its dialects,

Judaeo-Georgian Judaeo-Georgian ( ka, ყივრული ენა) (also known as Kivruli and Gruzinic) is the traditional Georgian dialect spoken by the Georgian Jews, the ancient Jewish community of the Caucasus nation of Georgia. Relationship to other ...

and

Old Georgian Old Georgian (ႤႬႠჂ ႵႠႰႧႭჃႪႨ, ''enay kartuli'') was a literary language of the Georgian monarchies attested from the 5th century. The language remains in use as the liturgical language of the Georgian Orthodox Church and for ...

, and the

, which contain the

Mingrelian Mingrelian may refer to: *the Mingrelians *the Mingrelian language Mingrelian or Megrelian (, ) is a Kartvelian language spoken in Western Georgia (regions of Mingrelia and Abkhazia), primarily by the Mingrelians. The language was also called kol ...

and Laz languages.

References

Kartvelian languages Agglutinative languages Georgian-Zan languages {{Lang-stub