ISET continued its Distinguished Professors Lecture Series, which it runs in cooperation with Tbilisi State University, on Thursday, January 29th. In this installment of the series, ISET hosted Professor Ramaz Kurdadze, Head of the Institute of the Georgian Language at Faculty of Humanities and Member of the Academic Board of Tbilisi State University. Prof. Kurdadze delivered a lecture and presentation titled, “The Kartvelian Languages and the Georgian Literary Language through the Centuries”.

Although a slightly unusual subject for a school of economics, ISET’s faculty and students, as well as the event’s other participants thoroughly enjoyed Prof. Kurdadze’s lecture.

Professor Kurdadze began his presentation with an explanation of why April 14th is a special day for the Georgian language and the history behind the date. He also discussed the Caucasian language family and explained to which each sub-group of the modern language spoken in the Caucasus belongs. He also discussed a few of the dead Caucasian languages. In addition, Prof. Kurdadze went over the origins and evolution of the Georgian alphabet and the periodization of the literary Georgian language.

At the end of his presentation, Prof. Kurdadze answered questions from the audience and discussed whether the Mingrelian and Svani languages are endangered.