Phonetic and phonological changes based on the samples of 19th century Georgian literary language

Abstract

The study presented below, concerns the significant phonetic and phonological changes that occurred in the Georgian literary language of the 19th century.

In particular, we aim to discuss the transition of the Georgian three-member sound system (vowel, consonant, semivowel) into a two-member system (a vowel and a consonant). In scholarly literature, this phenomenon is often perceived as an expression of tendency towards simplification. Even though the reason behind the loss of semivowels was their weak (unstressed) position, the result was a simplification of the sound system; therefore, the change took place within this general tendency.

The paper discusses how the loss of  phonemes simplified the phonematic system of the language, while at the same time, complicating the field of orthography. Medieval scribes, who could no longer perceive the corresponding sounds in spoken language, were confused about the rules for using the graphemes that represented them and often utilized them without function. Gradually, it resulted in emergence of various types of orthographic errors—such as reversed spellings, contaminated spellings, etc. These graphic signs remained in the literary language up to the second half of the 19th century (and, to a certain degree, even beyond). The functionless use of these graphemes was one of the essential elements of the linguistic heritage passed down to the Georgian literary language of the 19th century.