Saberdzneti ( ka, საბერძნეთი ) was an ambiguous geographic term used in
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...
, the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
and the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
, while ''berdzeni'' ( ka, ბერძენი) was a name for people who lived in those states. Later the name ''saberdzneti'' came to mean simply "
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
" and ''berdzeni'' "the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
". ''Saberdzneti'' literally means "Land of the Berdzens" (i.e. "Land of the
Greeks
The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, ot ...
.)
The ethnonym ''berdzeni'' is presumed to be related to the pre-Greek
Pelasgians
The name Pelasgians ( grc, Πελασγοί, ''Pelasgoí'', singular: Πελασγός, ''Pelasgós'') was used by classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergenc ...
(Πελασγοί, ''Pelasgoi''), it being derived from the phonetical variant ''pel'' of the root ''ber''. The ''dz'' of ''ber-dz-eni'' may be a variant of the ''Pel-as-goi'', as s/z may have changed to dz in Georgian. This is also indicated by the existence of the stem ''bersen'' alongside ''berdzen'' in
Georgian surname
A Georgian name consists of a given name and a surname used by ethnic Georgians.
Given names
According to the Public Service Hall the most common Georgian names are:wise" ''brdzeni'' ( ka, ბრძენი), thus ''saberdzneti'' would literally mean "land where the wise men live", possibly referring to the
Ancient Greek philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire ...
.Rapp, Stephen H. (1997) ''Imagining History at the Crossroads: Persia, Byzantium, and the Architects of the Written Georgian Past, Volume 1'',
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
, p. 207 The same root is also adopted in Abkhazian and Greece is referred as ''barzentyla'' (Барзентәыла).
See also
*
Names of the Greeks
The Greeks ( el, Έλληνες) have been identified by many ethnonyms. The most common native ethnonym is ''Hellen'' ( grc, Ἕλλην), pl. '' Hellenes'' (); the name ''Greeks'' ( la, Graeci) was used by the ancient Romans and gradually ent ...