NEW MATERIALS ON THE TRANSLATION OF THE ABKHAZ AND OSSETIAN LANGUAGES INTO THE GEORGIAN SCRIPT

Teimuraz Gvantseladze; Gvantsa Gvantseladze; Sofiko Chaava

Teimuraz Gvantseladze Doctor of philological sciences, Professor of Sokhumi State University, 0186, Politkovskaya str., 61, Tbilisi, Georgia, http://orcid.org/0009-0001-7630-4858
Gvantsa Gvantseladze Doctor of philology, Associate Professor of Sokhumi State University, 0186, Politkovskaya str., 61, Tbilisi, Georgia, http://orcid.org/0009-0007-1641-3175
Sofiko Chaava Doctor of Philology Visiting Professor of Sokhumi State University, 0186, Politkovskaya str., 61, Tbilisi, Georgia, http://orcid.org/0009-0006-4735-4772

Abstract

Archival documents show that Moscow was hesitating for a while and was considering over which script to transfer the northern and southern variants of the Ossetian language from the Latin alphabet to: both to Russian or both to Georgian. In the conclusion, which was submitted to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR by the Institute of Languages and Writings of the Peoples of the USSR, was mentioned that the fate of both variants of the Ossetian language should be decided equally, but the resolution of the Central Committee this recommendation and they have written the following: “North Ossetian Script” should be transferred to the Russian script. This “terminological innovation” practically divided the Ossetian people into two ethnic groups, on the basis of which the “South Ossetian language” implicit in the so-called South Ossetia was transferred to the Georgian script; With this action the seeds of confrontation between the Ossetian and Georgian peoples have been planted. A similar goal might be also supposed also in the case of transferring the Abkhazian language to the Georgian script. In an archival document (1937), the author Arsen Hashba praises the Georgian script and, along with other serious arguments, cites the following: “when an Abkhazian student studies the Georgian script selected for the Abkhazian language, he will know how to read and write in both Abkhazian and Georgian, and when a Georgian child living in Abkhazia learns to read and write in Georgian, he will already know the Abkhazian letters”. The conversion of the Abkhazian language to Georgian graphics was also motivated by the fact that Abkhaz scholars expressed the idea, unacceptable to the regime, of using the Abkhazian script for the Abaza language.

Keywords: Abkhaz script; Ossetian script; Georgian script for Abkhaz; Georgian script for Ossetian; writing and the soviet policy in Georgia.