Editing Georgian scripts (section)

== Origins ==
{{multiple image
|align     = left
|direction = vertical
|image1    = Jerusalem-Terra-Sancta-Museum-V1-433.jpg
|width     = 220
|alt1      =
|caption1  = [[Bir el Qutt inscriptions]], {{circa|430 AD}}, [[Studium Biblicum Franciscanum]], [[Jerusalem]] 
|image2    = Inscription of Bolnisis Sioni (2).jpg
|alt2      =
|caption2  = [[Bolnisi inscriptions]], {{circa|494 AD}}, [[Simon Janashia Museum of Georgia]], [[Tbilisi]]
}}
The origin of the Georgian script is poorly known, and no full agreement exists among Georgian and foreign scholars as to its date of creation, who designed the script, and the main influences on that process.

The first attested version of the script is ''Asomtavruli'', which dates back to the 5th century; the other scripts were formed in the following centuries. Most scholars link the creation of the Georgian script to the process of [[Christianization of Iberia]] (not to be confused with the [[Iberian Peninsula]]), a core Georgian kingdom of [[Kartli]].{{sfn|Hewitt|1995|p=4}} The alphabet was therefore most probably created between the conversion of Iberia under King [[Mirian III of Iberia|Mirian III]] (326 or 337) and the [[Bir el Qutt inscriptions]] of 430.{{sfn|Hewitt|1995|p=4}}{{sfn|West|2010|p=230|ps=: Archaeological work in the last decade has confirmed that a Georgian alphabet did exist very early in Georgia's history, with the first examples being dated from the '''fifth century''' C.E.}} It was first used for translation of the Bible and other Christian literature into [[Old Georgian language|Georgian]], by monks in Georgia and [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]].<ref name=Lig1 /> Professor [[Levan Chilashvili]]'s dating of fragmented ''Asomtavruli'' inscriptions, discovered by him at the ruined town of [[Nekresi]], in Georgia's easternmost province of [[Kakheti]], in the 1980s, to the 1st or 2nd century has not been accepted.{{sfn|Rapp|2003|p=19|ps=: footnote 43: "The date of the supposed grave marker is hopelessly circumstantial ... I cannot support Chilashvili's dubious hypothesis."}}

A Georgian tradition first attested in the medieval chronicle ''Lives of the Kings of Kartli'' ({{circa|800}}),<ref name=Lig1 /> assigns a much earlier, pre-Christian origin to the Georgian alphabet, and names King [[Pharnavaz I of Iberia|Pharnavaz I]] (3rd century BC) as its inventor. This account is now considered legendary, and is rejected by scholarly consensus, as no archaeological confirmation has been found.<ref name=Lig1 />{{sfn|Rayfield|2013|p=}}{{sfn|Rapp|2010|p=139}} Georgian linguist [[Tamaz Gamkrelidze]] offers an alternative interpretation of the tradition, in the pre-Christian use of foreign scripts to write down Georgian texts.{{sfn| Kemertelidze|1999|pp=228-}}

Another point of contention among scholars is the role played by [[Armenian Apostolic Church|Armenian clerics]] in that process. According to medieval Armenian sources and a number of scholars, [[Mesrop Mashtots]], generally acknowledged as the creator of the [[Armenian alphabet]], also allegedly created the Georgian and [[Caucasian Albanian alphabet]]s. This tradition originates in the works of [[Koryun]], a fifth-century historian and biographer of Mashtots,<ref name="Mashtots" /> and has been quoted by [[Donald Rayfield]] and [[James R. Russell]],{{sfn|Rayfield|2013|p=19|ps=: "The Georgian alphabet seems unlikely to have a pre-Christian origin, for the major archaeological monument of the 1st century 4IX the bilingual Armazi gravestone commemorating Serafua, daughter of the Georgian viceroy of Mtskheta, is inscribed in Greek and Aramaic only. It has been believed, and not only in Armenia, that all the Caucasian alphabets — Armenian, Georgian and Caucaso-Albanian — were invented in the 4th century by the Armenian scholar Mesrop Mashtots.<...> The Georgian chronicles The Life of Kartli – assert that a Georgian script was invented two centuries before Christ, an assertion unsupported by archaeology. There is a possibility that the Georgians, like many minor nations of the area, wrote in a foreign language — Persian, Aramaic, or Greek — and translated back as they read."}}{{sfn|Bowersock|Brown|Grabar|1999|p=289|ps=: Alphabets. "Mastoc' was a charismatic visionary who accomplished his task at a time when Armenia stood in danger of losing both its national identity, through partition, and its newly acquired Christian faith, through Sassanian pressure and reversion to paganism. By preaching in Armenian, he was able to undermine and co-opt the discourse founded in native tradition, and to create a counterweight against both Byzantine and Syriac cultural hegemony in the church. Mastoc' also created the Georgian and Caucasian-Albanian alphabets, based on the Armenian model."}} but has been rejected by Georgian scholarship and some Western scholars who judge the passage in Koryun unreliable or even a later interpolation.<ref name=Lig1 /> In his study on the history of the invention of the Armenian alphabet and the life of Mashtots, the Armenian linguist [[Hrachia Acharian]] strongly defended Koryun as a reliable source and rejected criticisms of his accounts on the invention of the Georgian script by Mashtots.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Acharian |first1=Hrachia |author-link1=Hrachia Acharian |title=Հայոց գրերը |trans-title=The Armenian Script |series=Հայագիտական հետազոտությունների մատենաշար |date=1984 |publisher=Hayastan Publishing |location=Yerevan  |url=http://serials.flib.sci.am/Founders/Hayoc%20grer-%20Acharyan/book/index.html#page/185/mode/1up |language=hy |page= 181 |script-quote=hy:Կասկածել Կորյունի վրա՝ նշանակում է առհասարակ ուրանալ պատմությունը։ |trans-quote=To doubt Koryun['s account] means to deny history itself.}}</ref> Acharian dated the invention to 408, four years after Mashtots created the Armenian alphabet (he dated the latter event to 404).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Acharian |first1=Hrachia |author-link1=Hrachia Acharian |title=Հայոց գրերը |trans-title=The Armenian Script |series=Հայագիտական հետազոտությունների մատենաշար |date=1984 |publisher=Hayastan Publishing |location=Yerevan  |url=http://haygirk.nla.am/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=7946 |language=hy |page= [http://serials.flib.sci.am/Founders/Hayoc%20grer-%20Acharyan/book/index.html#page/394/mode/2up 391] |script-quote=hy:408 ... հնարում է վրաց գրերը}}</ref> Some Western scholars quote Koryun's claims without taking a stance on its validity{{sfn|Thomson|1996|pp=xxii–xxiii}}{{sfn|Rapp|2003|p=450|ps=: "There is also the claim advanced by Koriwn in his saintly biography of Mashtoc' (Mesrop) that the Georgian script had been invented at the direction of Mashtoc'. Yet it is within the realm of possibility that this tradition, repeated by many later Armenian historians, may not have been part of the original fifth-century text at all but added after 607. Significantly, all of the extant MSS containing The Life of Mashtoc* were copied centuries after the split. Consequently, scribal manipulation reflecting post-schism (especially anti-Georgian) attitudes potentially contaminates all MSS copied after that time. It is therefore conceivable, though not yet proven, that valuable information about Georgia transmitted by pre-schism Armenian texts was excised by later, post-schism individuals."}} or concede that Armenian clerics, if not Mashtots himself, must have played a role in the creation of the Georgian script.<ref name=Lig1/>{{sfn|Rapp|2010|p=139}}{{sfn|Greppin|1981|pp=449–456}} [[Ivane Javakhishvili]], a Georgian historian and scientist, studied this work of Koryun and concluded that the version of Mesrop Mashtots' creation of the Georgian alphabet is a VI-VII century addition. However, the 5th-century Armenian historian [[Ghazar Parpetsi]] considers Mashtots to be the creator of only the Armenian alphabet.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thomson |first=Robert W. |title=The History of Łazar Pʻarpecʻi |location=Atlanta, Georgia |publication-date=1991 |pages=46-50}}</ref>

Another controversy regards the main influences at play in the Georgian alphabet, as scholars have debated whether it was inspired more by the [[Greek alphabet]], or by Semitic alphabets such as [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]].{{sfn|Kemertelidze|1999|pp=228-}} Recent historiography focuses on greater similarities with the Greek alphabet than in the other Caucasian writing systems, most notably the order and numeric value of letters.{{sfn|Shanidze|2000|p=444}}<ref name=Lig1 /> Some scholars have also suggested certain pre-Christian Georgian cultural symbols or clan markers as a possible inspiration for particular letters.{{sfn|Haarmann|2012|p=299}}