Until 1989, Georgian was the only written language among the South Caucasian languages. A unique Georgian alphabet was devised following the country's conversion to Christianity in 337. Today's script, although based on Cyrillic, also uses at least fourteen non-Cyrillic characters. There is no grammatical gender. Pronouns are declined and display number and case for subject, direct object, indirect object, and possessive forms.
Verbs can show agreement with the subject, object, and indirect object.
Georgian has five vowels and a consonant inventory of twenty-nine phonemes, including ejectives. Consonants can occur in clusters of up to six sounds, for example in the word mcvrtneli 'trainer'. As the official language of Georgia, most newspapers and journals are published in Georgian. Radio Tbilisi broadcasts in Georgian and five other languages and the Tbilisi Television broadcasts in Georgian and Russian. The education system of Georgia was an integrated part of the larger Soviet system until the late 1980s, when extensive changes placed more emphasis on Georgian language and history.