Protecting Language Purity And The Newspaper “Kartuli” In Kutaisi 1998-2004

Abstract

Kutaisi division of the Georgian state chamber of language was founded in 1996. Professor T. Putkaradze initiated the idea and he laid the foundation for the newspaper “Qartuli” in 1998. The newspaper existed from 1998 to 2004 and it published 36 newspapers in total.

Kutaisi Language Division worked in three directions.
1. City outskirts, advertisements, pillars, names of streets and squares. It also controlled their linguistic outlook.
2. The language of handicap and the terminology in the Georgian literary language in the establishment of the township located in the city.
3. With the aim of teaching the state language at the desired level, the academic institutions of the city were actively cooperating.

The newspaper discussed various topics, especially historical, literary, and
linguistic ones. Special attention was paid to the protection of language purity and
discussion of terminology problems. Their newspaper had several rubrics in this
respect.

“We, a language and a street “ in which there was talk about neglecting the native language in case of street and square signs. “Words in profile or language pearls“ was about the process of creating words, subtraction, development and further changes. The various rules of spelling were discussed in the “right speech” . “Case production and terminology”, discussed the technical terms that were unacceptable for literary language. “State language and our fellow citizens“ were interviewed on issues related to the functioning of the state language. Rubric “foreign words“ explained lexemes of foreign origin and their values.

Kutaisi state chamber of language was conducting a competition named “Dadiani” It was participated by general educational institutions of the city which demonstrated the excellent knowledge of Georgian. Participants of the contest were actively discussing language problems in the newspaper “Kartuli”.

We should mention one more notable rubric for teachers and school children
to help them. Teachers were given methodological advice how to explain grammar
rules to students.

Based on the above mentioned, we can state that the existence of the newspaper of “Kartuli” was important for the city. It gives a common picture of the city’s
linguistic state of that time. As for the materials presented in the rubrics will help
students interested in Georgian literary language for further research.