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.
