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Georgia wants foreigners to pronounce its name differently
Published: 02 December, 2009, 20:18
Edited: 27 May, 2010, 14:47
TAGS: Georgia, Russia, Politics, Europe, Prime Time Russia
The Georgian Foreign Ministry officially asked its Lithuanian colleagues to refrain from calling their country “Gruziya,” which is close to the Slavic pronunciation, and stick to the English-sounding “Georgia” instead.
The Georgian ambassador to Vilnius said that the name Gruzia is a Soviet relic and already has no connection to the country. The Lithuanian side has not yet reacted to the Georgian request.
Earlier this year Georgia made a similar appeal to Japan. The Japanese authorities said that to fulfill it they would have to change the law, which they were reluctant to do, so the situation remained the same.
It should be noted, however, that Georgia in Georgian is called “Sakartvelo,” which sounds nothing like the name of the country in English, Russian or any other language.
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9 comments
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"It's relation to Slavic languages is zero"? Tbilisi means "the warm". Russian "teplo","teplitsa".Teplice in Czech Republic.
Georgian language stands on its own and doesn't belong in any language groups. It's relation to Slavic languages is zero. They also have their own writing system that bears no resemblance to Latin or Cyrillic scripts. As for legal basis - why would they need one for making a request? As for moral basis - why should a non-Slavic country call another non-Slavic country by its Slavic name introduced by the empire that once subjected both of these currently independent countries? And, FWIW, as opposed to the US state the name of Georgia would probably be pronounced as spelled following the native pronunciation rules, not English ones which make the "g"-s sound as "dzh".
alus, The actual question here -- why Georgians would want to switch from one foreign pronunciation (Slavic) to another one (British)? So, the hypocrisy lies there. For me the answer is quite obvious -- to pretend that they are Westerners and, possibly, to please their new "biggest friend" -- the US. In any case, the "highly developed" Georgians want nothing to do with their "barbaric" neighbors -- Russians.