This may look like I just furiously typed some random letters.
But I swear it's not gibberish, it's Georgian!
This tough language has some record-breaking words.
Its clustered consonants might not be as tricky as you think, though.
Somehow, they're even worse.
Ahem.
Dear Kartuli, or as we call you in English, Georgian. I've been noticing something about
you, ever since I mentioned you in my video on the Caucasus: you have a reputation.
You're labeled difficult by frustrated learners and fasinated language nerds alike.
The US Foreign Service Institute maybe rates you a category four out of five, actually
four asterisk because you're unusually tough for a four.
Is it your ejective consonants?
(Fewer than some languages, but still!)
Is it your seven different noun cases?
Your base 20 numbers?
Or your very own old writing system that looks like something out of a fantasy worldbuilding
daydream?
No, I figured it out.
I know what makes you tough.
Today I hope you appreciate the attention I'll pay to the biggest of your many quirks.
Hhh.
Gamarjoba!
Thanks for letting me finish that letter.
I've been meaning to write it for a while now.
Well, now that you're here, let's pretend.
Imagine that you are new to Georgian, never studied it before.
You've tried another language, you know, the gentle kind they let everyone in on.
Maybe you took Spanish or French, or maybe German for the challenge.
Now all of the sudden you're dealing with Georgian.
Why would you subject yourself to this?
Hmm, maybe because your crush is Georgian?
Or the music.
You're really into polyphony.
Oh, I know.
It was the food, wasn't it?
Ever dipped into some eggplant sastsivi before?
Well, I guess that swayed you and you're going for it.
Kudos, language adventurer.
But for all its notoriety I mentioned, none of this is the bane of learners.
The real issue tying their tongues is, say it with me now: gvprtskvni!
Yes, that is one single syllable.
It means "you peel us", and it starts with you pronouncing a bunch of cnsnnts before
you get any relief with that vowel.
How just one syllable?
Well, that's easy.
You want to know how many syllables a Georgian word has?
Count its vowels.
Even the a-a-a here is three syllables!
So, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 and then 1 vowel, which makes this quite a cluster of consonants.
Yeah, good luck finding a language that oudoes Georgian, which might take the record for
longest cluster before the nucleus of a syllable!
(Because that's a record we were all competing over.)
Now, overwhelmed students have spit out their own names for this, but a kind way to put
it is that Georgian has a "highly complex" syllable structure.
I might have another problem with this syllable.
It's "unnatural".
Almost.
See, here's how things are supposed to work: syllables flow in a certain shape, going from
stoppy, restricted sounds at the edges to sonorous sounds in the center.
This principle supposedly makes information easier to convey syllable after syllable.
But no-no-no, what does Georgian go and do?
It gets you pronouncing clusters that most languages find awkward.
Sonority violation!
Yeah, your mouth's going to need some warmups before you can say this.
Take it letter by letter.
After all, Georgians will proudly tell you that their words are pronounced
exactly as written.
Now, this paper argues back that such syllables could be easier for Georgians to recognize
and articulate.
Nevertheless, they are unusual.
So if you decide to make up a plausible natural language don't base it off of Georgian, nobody
will believe you, c'mon no one speaks that way.
Except in Georgia.
I mean, this is a country where people call their dad "mama" and their mother is "deda".
Seriously.
Why are Georgian consonants getting so clustery and seemingly disordered?
Blame it on...
...the verbs.
Phh, how do I put this!?
I don't want to shatter your dreams.
If you're really intent on learning this language, take deep a breath.
As the introductory pep-talk in this grammar soberly warns you,
"Georgian is not an easy language."
Its verbs are "almost certain to exceed in complexity anything
that [you] will have experienced before".
Hyuhh.
Here's the short story: there are things called screeves, versioners, polypersonal...
wait, I'm sorry, that's the long story!
Ok, here's the deal for those of us who want to watch a video, be fascinated, then move
on with our lives.
Almost paradoxically, many of Georgia's verbs start out small.
And I mean tiny.
A verb root can be just gh.
That means bring.
Or rb, run away.
And, oh, bake is tskh!
But in practice what they turn into are polysynthetic monsters with tiny bits strung together, each
playing an important role.
(Medieval Georgian dragon onscreen.)
Heh, hopefully the dragon doesn't get hungry and nibble off one of those letters because,
pay attention, every piece means something!
Fortunately, with dedication you'll learn what they all mean.
But it'll take much more to learn which bits to string onto which verb.
See, that's the trouble with Georgian verbs.
All these little pieces.
And merely because you can use one on one verb doesn't mean you can use it on another.
See these three future tense verbs?
You get to learn very different pieces for each verb.
Even when pieces are the same, like this little "i", just because a piece had one meaning
once doesn't mean it always will.
If you're a wide-eyed learner expecting a nice, color-coded template for conjugating
verbs, like this nifty Italian chart, sorry, no, it looks more like this 645 page book.
Assigned reading.
Please finish it by the end of the month.
With exceptions and systematic irregularities around every corner, you can understand why
Georgian verbs feel random, unpredictable.
Unless, I'm told, you're a computer using multiple finite state transducers.
So I guess there is hope, for the robots anyway.
Verbs drive many of these consonant pileups.
But whenever you spot impressively extreme strings of consonants, before or after a vowel,
that took cherrypicking.
Watch, here's how to build a breathtaking cluster yourself: look for a long vowelless
root; add a consonant prefix like gv.
Gv-prtskvn-i!
Of course, real-life Georgians can simplify this tongue-tensing verbal mouthful.
I am not one, but let me try: gvprtskvni.
So, oddly enough, the tougher strings come from gentler verbs.
Ones with shorter clusters and more vowels, those are the ones to watch out for.
Languages around the world can and do go longer than this without vowels: whole words in Ōgami
in Japan's southwest islands or entire vowelless sentences in Nuxalk in British Columbia.
Here, I can even concoct something in English, about as useful as "you peel us":
"prompt purple kerfluffle".
Did you just flip out?
Look oh wow what even is that cluster!?
Nah, how long you can go before you hit a vowel is not what makes Georgian eccentric.
It takes top prize for the way its grammar lets it string together pieces that collide
several consonants deep at the very start of a syllable.
So if you're pain-tolerant enough for Georgian, practice, study diligently, but don't fear
its clever clusters, fear the verbs that can generate them.
Thanks for joining me on this linguistic adventure.
I got to clench my teeth all the way through the research about Georgian phonotactics thanks
to my patrons, including the people you see here.
გმადლობთ (gmadlobt)!
Their support matters a lot to me.
Not only did they choose the video you just watched, they give me a way to make these
linguistic tales without trying to sell you a product here at the end.
I appreciate that. But most of all, stick around and subscribe for language.