Kartvelian languages
The Kartvelian languages (; ; also known as South Caucasian) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Georgia. There are approximately 5.2 million Kartvelian speakers worldwide, with large groups in Russia, Iran, the United States, the EU, Israel, and northeastern Turkey. The Kartvelian family has no known relation to any other language family, making it one of the world's primary language families. The most widely spoken of these languages is Georgian. The earliest literary source in any Kartvelian language is the Old Georgian Bir el Qutt inscriptions, written in ancient Georgian "Asomtavruli" script  at the once-existing Georgian monastery near Bethlehem, dated to c. 430 AD. The Georgian script is used to write all Kartvelian languages. Social and cultural status. Georgian is the official language of Georgia (spoken by 90% of the population) and the main language for literary and business use in Georgia. It is written with an original and distinctive alphabet, and the oldest surviving literary text dates from the 5th century AD. The old Georgian script seems to have been derived from the Greek script, but this is not certain. Mingrelian has been written with the Georgian alphabet since 1864 , especially in the period from 1930 to 1938, when the Mingrelians enjoyed some cultural autonomy, and after 1989. The Laz language was written mainly between 1927 and 1937, and now again in Turkey using the Latin alphabet. Laz, however, is disappearing as its speakers are integrating into mainstream Turkish society. Classification. The Kartvelian language family consists of four closely related languages: Genealogical tree. The connection between these languages was first reported in linguistic literature by Johann Anton Güldenstädt in his 1773 classification of the languages of the Caucasus, and later proven by G. Rosen, Marie-Félicité Brosset, Franz Bopp and  others during the 1840s. Zan is the branch that contains the Mingrelian and Laz languages. On the basis of glottochronological analysis, Georgi Klimov dates the split of the Proto-Kartvelian into Svan and Proto-Georgian-Zan (Proto-Karto-Zan) to the 19th century BC, and the further division into Georgian and Zan to the 8th century BC, although with the reservation that such dating is very preliminary and substantial further study is required. Higher-level connections. No relationship with other languages, including the two North Caucasian language families, has been demonstrated so far. According to the Nostratic hypothesis, advocated by  Illič-Svityč and his school, the six language families Altaic, Uralic, Indo-European, Dravidian, Semito-Hamitic and Kartvelian go back to a common proto-language and are thus genetically related. Note however that both the concept of a Nostratic family and Kartvelian's relation to it are not considered likely by other linguists. Certain grammatical similarities with Basque, especially in the case system, have often been pointed out. However, the hypothesis of a relationship, which also tends to link the Caucasian languages with other non-Indo-European and non-Semitic languages of the Near East of ancient times, is generally  considered to lack conclusive evidence. Any similarities to other linguistic phyla may be due to areal influences. Heavy borrowing in both directions (i.e. from North Caucasian to Kartvelian and vice versa) has been observed; therefore, it is likely that certain grammatical features have been influenced as well. If the Dené–Caucasian hypothesis, which attempts to link Basque, Burushaski, the North Caucasian families and other phyla, is correct, then the similarities to Basque may also be due to these influences, however indirect. Certain Kartvelian–Indo-European lexical links are revealed at the protolanguage level, which are ascribed to the early contacts  between Proto-Kartvelian and Proto-Indo-European populations. Comparative grammar. Noun classification. The Kartvelian languages classify objects as "intelligent" ("who"-class) and "unintelligent" ("what"-class) beings. Grammatical gender does not exist. Verb. Kartvelian verbs can indicate one, two, or three grammatical persons. A performer of an action is called the subject and affected persons are objects (direct or indirect). The person may be singular or plural. According to the number of persons, the verbs are classified as unipersonal, bipersonal or tripersonal. "Subjects" and "objects" are indicated with special affixes. By means of special markers Kartvelian verbs can indicate four kinds of action  intentionality ("version"):