Reading in Georgian: ვახტანგ გორგასალი Vakhtang Gorgasali

Vakhtang Gorgasali was a Georgian King in the fifth century.  His biography is the first in the series “დიდი ქართველები” (Great Georgians).

ვახტანგ გორგესალი Vakhtang Gorgesali

Vakhtang Gorgasali was the son of King Mihrdat V (მირდატ V) of Iberia (Eastern Georgia) and a Persian Noblewoman Sagdukht. His father died when he was just seven years old.

An equestrian statue of Vakhtang Gorgasali can be seen in front of Metekhi Church in the centre of Tbilisi. Vakhtang was famous for founding Tbilisi, at the time of his birth there was no Tbilisi and the capital was Mtskheta.

Equestrian Statue of Vakhtang Gorgasali in front of Metekhi Church

I have been reading this with the help of Khato, my lovely Georgian wife. As she prepares the dinner (ხათო თლის ვაშლს), I read the text, painfully slowly, she then helps me translate the words. For a children’s text there are a lot of long words like “ქერპთაყვანისმცემელთა” (20 letters long!). Long words in Georgian should come as no surprise, where even a simple hello in Georgian is გამარჯობა (gamarjoba) which means something like “I wish thee victory”.

ქერპთაყვანისმცემელთა (20 letter-long word)

Some useful vocabulary picked up in the first couple of pages. (I try to learn vocabulary by making associations in my mind, I find Georgian words much more difficult to remember than French, Spanish or even Russian words…:)

თითქმის    (titkmis)   almost…. this almost has rude associations…you might be disappointed if a Georgian girl offers to show you her თითი (titi) as this means finger (or toe) not what you might have been thinking!
მთავარი    (mtavari)  main   the “tav” in the middle is like” tavi” meaning head

გმირი  (gmiri)   hero  trying to imagine the Soviet Space station Mir inside a GI….

ქვეყანა   (kveq’ani)  country…the word doesn’t look like any country I know

სპარსეთი  (sparseti) Persia

სპარსი  (sparsi) Persian this looks a little like Farsi, the language of Iran/Persia

დედოფალი   (dedopali) queen დედა is mother so there is a similarity

მტერი … მტრები  (mteri…mtrebi) enemy…enemies the plural is very close to the Georgian word for pigeon (მტრედი) I can imagine a flock of pigeons crossing over the border invading Georgia…

მოკვდა  (mokvda)  died  this doesn’t suggest any associations to me…so I just have to learn it.

I still have several pages to go so I shall update this post as I make further progress.

Reading in Georgian: Pirsomani ფიროსმანი

I want to move away from children’s books and read something more interesting. Palitra, a Georgian publishing house, have a series of books about “დიდი ქართველები” (Great Georgians). These are aimed at children, it is true, but they are not fairytales, they remind me of the Ladybird Books I grew up with in England, from which I learnt a lot.

a sample of the “Great Georgians”

I usually borrow them from the Mediatek and return them having just looked at the pictures. The biography of Pirosmani (ფიროსმანი) is the first I have actually read in its entirety. My wife helped me with every sentence (she is better than Google translate).

Niko Pirsomani is possibly the most famous Georgian painter. He was born in the village of Mirzaani (მირზაანი) in Kakheti (now part of Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire). At the age of eight he moved to Tbilisi in the care of his newly married elder sister, Mariam.

Young Niko moves to Tbilisi with his sister and her husband.

Unfortunately Niko’s sister died of cholera and Niko had to support himself working as a servant to wealthy families.

Niko taught himself painting and developed his own distinctive style. One of his specialties was painting directly onto oilcloth (the medium being much cheaper than canvas). At the age of 20 he opened a painting workshop with another self-taught artist, George Zaziashvili, where they made signboards.

Painting signs for bars in his distinctive style.

Pirosmani had other jobs in his life, he was a train conductor and at one time he sold dairy products near to where McDonalds is now located in Rustaveli Avenue. As a painter he struggled and often had difficulty even affording the materials for painting.

Vazha Pshavela sometimes visited the bar where Pirsomani was painting.

He was very shy and although he greatly admired the poetry of Vazha Pshavela, when Vazha visited the bar where Pirsomani was working, Pirosmani was too shy to introduce himself.

Members of the art establishment were slow to recognise Pirosmani, although they noticed his signs all around Tbilisi. He did exhibit some paintings in Moscow at an exhibition for self taught artists. The Society of Georgian Painters, founded in 1916 by Dito Shevardnadze, invited Pirosmani to its meetings, but his relations with the society were always uneasy.

Reading about Pirosmani on the beach in Gerogian

Pirosmani suffered from poverty and ill health throughout his life. He never married although he was besotted by a French actress, Margarita, who he painted and sent many flowers which he could ill afford. In his last years his lodgings were a former broom cupboard under the stairs. he died in 1918.

Pirosmani in his room under the stairs.

When he died in 1918, his passing went virtually unnoticed, and it is unknown today where he is buried.

Pirsomani’s reputation grew after his death, Pirosmani was the subject of a film made in 1969, that won the Grand Prix at the Chicago Film Festival in 1972.

In 2013 to celebrate the 150th birthday of Georgia’s most famous painter. 108 works taken from the national archives were showcased at the national Gallery in Tbilisi,  the largest-scale exhibition of Pirosmani since the 1970s. Pirosmani Exhibition

There are at least 44 other books in the series, I shall try to read some more:

Palitra “დიდი კართველები”

Reading in Georgian: ჯინი ბოთლში The Genie in the Bottle

ჯინი ბოთლში

I have stepped up now to level 2 of the Usborne First readers translated into Georgian. This is a retelling of the classic “Genie in a Bottle” story.

A fisherman is not having much luck fishing apart from catching some seaweed, some colourful shells and an old sock (ფუუუ!)…but then he finds an old bottle in his net.

მეთევზემ ბოტლს თავსახური მოხსნა და შიგ ჩაიხედა.
The fisherman removed the cap and looked inside the bottle.

At first it seems there is nothing in the bottle, that it is empty (ცარიელია!) and he throws it away. But then there is a cloud of smoke and an angry genie appears.

=^_^= “მიაუ !”

The genie has been trapped inside the bottle for 1000 years, he is very hungry and wants to eat the fisherman, but the fisherman has an idea….

Level 2 readers have a vocabulary range of 250 words (level one was 150 words). I got through the book laboriously by copying out the Georgian then making a translation in English. For this I am helped by a dictionary, my Georgian wife and Google Translate (which isn’t too slick on Georgian!).

Later I may read the book in Georgian to one of my grand daughters.

Some useful Georgian vocabulary from the book:

მერე   then

ძველი   old

უცებ   suddenly

მაგრამ   but

Not useful Georgian vocabulary:

ჯინი   genie (not a word I will need every day….sorry, Christina Aguilera)

აურუყრუყდა this is the sound the genie’s stomach (მუცელი) makes when he is hungry

 

ქართულს სწავლობ ნელ-ნელა

Reading in Georgian : The Fox and The Crow მელა და ყვავი

მელა და ყვავი The Fox and the Crow

 

My reading in Georgian is still at the first level, here another children’s story with a moral.

The fox is walking in the wood, when he spies a crow in a tree with a piece of cheese.

 

 

For once I can understand what the fox says without resorting to a dictionary or “Google Translate” (which isn’t great from Georgian to English). “ყველი მინდა” (I want the cheese).

The fox is sneaky and flatters the crow telling her how beautiful she is, what beautiful wings and speculating that the crow has a beautiful voice, too.

the crow begins to caw and drops the piece of cheese

The crow, susceptible to the flattery starts cawing… ყვაა…, ყვაა…. (which sounds more crow like than the English … caw… caw…) as soon as she opens her beak (ნისკარტი დაალო) the cheese is dropped.

the fox catches the cheese and gobbles it down

The fox catches the cheese in his mouth.

The moral being you shouldn’t always believe flattery.

I think it is time I moved up to the second level of Georgian books.

I borrowed the following from the local “Mediatek” (library) : in addition to the Fox and the Crow, there is a level two book ვირისყურება მეფე (The King with Donkey Ears), a book about Saint George (წმინდა გიორგი) and another about იაკობ გოგებაშვილი (Jacob Gogebashvili), who created the Georgian a-b-c  ა-ბ-გ book

some Georgian reading

I always have high ambitions on leaving the library, but often return the books late and unread

Reading in Georgian: ჭრიჭინა და ჭიანჭველა

ჭრიჭინა და ჭიანჭველა or “The Grasshopper and the Ant” is a tale of two insects.

ჭრიჭინა და ჭიანჭველა (The Grasshopper and the Ant)

The grasshopper has a carefree attitude; spending the days singing and lazing around. The ant is hard working storing up grain for the Winter ahead.

ჭიანჭველა კი მუშაობდა The ant worked.

The story is quite predictable, the winter comes and the ant is warm and has plenty to eat, whilst the grasshopper is shivering from cold and hungry.

It all ends happily with the ant inviting the grasshopper in out of the cold and the grasshopper promising to work the following Summer.

I hope I will reach a level soon where I can read more interesting books. These book have nice illustrations but the stories aren’t exactly page-turners.

My Georgian Library

My collection of books in Georgian is growing unfortunately my ability to read in Georgian is not keeping pace…

Reading in Georgian: 3 მელა და წერო (The Fox and the Stork)

“The Fox and the Stork” is a tale with a moral.

მელა და წერო.

I first started reading books in a foreign language when I lived in France. In January 1993, I read Jules Verne’s classic science fiction novel Voyage au Centre de la Terre in French. I knew the story having read the book previously in English and having also seen the film. It took me a month to get through the novel underlining words I didn’t know, checking in a bilingual English-French dictionary and marking the book in pencil with the English translation. I have since read over a hundred books in French.

I now have books in three languages to read. I no longer need a pencil and dictionary for reading in French, only occasionally do I find a word, I don’t know. The Georgian book is a library book, so I won’t mark it. I use a notebook to copy out each line of Georgian then use a combination of what I know, Google Translate and my wonderful Georgian wife, to translate each line into English. I am not at a stage yet, where I can think in Georgian.

The books are short, so I can get through one in a couple of hours.

This story is about a fox (მელა) and a stork (წერო), who are friends but the naughty fox likes to play tricks on his friends.

მელა წეროს ხშირად ეხუმრებოდა … The fox liked playing tricks on the stork.

The fox had an idea for a new trick and invited the stork to lunch. The poor stork was unable to eat the soup from a bowl.

საბრალო წერო! Poor stork! You can see her difficulties from the delightful illustrations.

As you might have guessed the stork got her own back, inviting the fox for a meal which he couldn’t eat, because it was served in tall thin glasses.

The moral of the tale being: always treat your friends well and they won’t trick you.

Now I have a third book in the Usbourne first reading series.

ჭრიჭინა და და ჭიანჭველა (The Cricket and the Ant). I think it will be a while before I can read the works of famous Georgian writers like Rustaveli, Vazha-Pshavela or Tabidze in the original Georgian.