Materials For The Dictionary Of Imereti Dialects (According To Kutaisi Colloquial Speech)

Abstract

The article discusses dialectic word-forms and phrases from the lexis of Kutaisi residents. As an empirical data, we chose dialectic texts recorded in 1994-2005 by the Kartvelology scientific research center (earlier name: scientific research institute of Kartvelian dialectology) of Akaki Tsereteli State University. The data includes diverse materials got from people of different ages, gender, profession.

Kutaisi residents are families settled from different villages, also from different regions (Guria, Letchkhumi, Samegrelo) of Georgia at different times. Accordingly, Kutaisi’s speech reflects the language signs characteristic of the Imeretian dialect. Also, similar facts can be revealed in the dialects from Guria, Letchkhumi, Samegrelo or other not adjacent dialects, which is also natural.

Dialectic word-forms taken for analyses are compared to old Georgian language and the data of different dialectic dictionaries.

The material is interesting in terms of linguistic (formation, phonetic changes) as well as ethnographic (description of traditions and games, relevant terms) point of view.

The majority of analyzed words are not mentioned in dictionaries, a part of them are confirmed with a different form of semantics.