Georgian words that do not translate
A dhow, a kottu roshi, a khachapuri — words a dictionary can only give as a description in brackets, because the thing is not part of everyday life here. All such Georgian words are collected here: 44 words with an explanation of what it is and what it is for.
Words and what stands behind them
A thick paste of red pepper, garlic, salt and herbs ground on stone. Real ajika has no tomatoes — the jarred stuff sold under that name is closer to a sauce. Used sparingly: it is ferociously hot.
A river and valley between the Caucasus range and the Gombori range, the main grape land of the country. Even people who have never been to Georgia know the name: a semisweet wine was named after it, though almost no one there drinks it.
A Christmas procession: people in white walk the city singing, and passers-by hand them sweets for orphanages. The name is 'alleluia' worn down by Georgian pronunciation.
Slices of eggplant, fried and rolled around walnut paste with garlic and cilantro, a pomegranate seed on top. A cold appetizer that sits on the table from the first supra toast to the last.
A big market where cheese, herbs and spices are sold by weight and by eye, and haggling is the norm. Spices sit in little hills, the seller offers a taste of everything, and everyone mixes their own khmeli-suneli — no two blends at the bazaar are alike.
Both the bean itself and the dish built on it: beans stewed with onion, cilantro and spices, served whole or mashed in a clay pot. Eaten with mchadi corn bread and pickles; on a menu the word always means the dish, not the ingredient.
A pre-Christian carnival with masks of hides and felt, staging death and resurrection. Masked dancers go through the village until spring; it outlived both Christianization and Soviet rule.
A strong spirit distilled from the grape pomace left over after the wine. Homemade chacha can reach sixty degrees; the same word names the pomace itself — raw material and product share one name.
A man's knee-length kaftan with gazyri — rows of little chest pockets that once held powder charges. Worn to weddings, holidays and stage performances, over a shirt with a high collar.
Nuts strung on a thread, dipped many times in grape juice thickened with flour and dried. Made in autumn when the grapes are pressed and kept for months. The original energy bar — that is what people call it.
A cross — both the sign and the name of a sixth-century church on the hill above the meeting of the Kura and Aragvi rivers near Mtskheta, a model of all Georgian architecture. The same word lives in the verb 'to be wed': jvari davsert — literally 'crossed with the cross'.
Tbilisi's main market by the station, named after the soldiers who sold off their kit there in 1918 on their way home from the front. Cheese, spices, herbs and churchkhela — all sold by weight, and haggling is expected.
The cry at the end of a toast: literally 'victory to it'. The greeting gamarjoba — 'victory to you' — comes from the same place. A language that says hello as a wish of victory speaks its history plainly.
A twelfth-century monastery near Kutaisi, founded by David the Builder, with an academy that was in effect the country's first university. The mosaic in the main church survives from those days. UNESCO listed.
A thick corn porridge with no salt or butter, eaten in western Georgia instead of bread. Served hot, with a piece of sulguni stuck in the middle — the cheese melts and stretches. You do not eat it with a spoon; you break pieces off with your hand.
The wine region in the east, where three quarters of Georgian wine is made. In autumn comes rtveli, the grape harvest: all the relatives gather for it, and it looks more like a festival than work.
A memorial feast with its own order: toasts go in reverse, starting with the departed, glasses are not clinked and no one sings. The whole village gathers, and not coming is not an option. In structure it is the same supra, turned inside out.
A thick beef soup with rice, pounded walnuts, cilantro and sour tkemali plum. Real kharcho has no mutton and no tomatoes — what is cooked abroad under this name is a different dish.
A duel dance from the Khevsureti mountains: two men fight with swords and shields over a woman, and when she throws her scarf between them the fight must stop. Danced with real blades.
A pouch of dough with minced meat and broth inside, with a pleated topknot. You hold it by the topknot, bite it from the side and drink the broth, leaving the topknot on the plate — by the topknots the eaten ones are counted.
A minibus running between cities and within them: it leaves when full rather than on schedule and stops anywhere on request. The country's main intercity transport, cheaper and faster than the bus.
Thick soured milk of its own starter, denser than kefir and sourer than yogurt. Eaten with a spoon, thinned with water as a summer drink, and used to dress soups. The homemade kind lives in clay pots and is fed with starter for years.
A flat cornmeal bread baked on a dry pan, without yeast and with almost no salt. Deliberately plain: it is eaten with salty cheese and lobio, and the flavor comes from them. The staple of western Georgia.
The current Georgian script, the third in line: rounded, with no capital letters and no kin to its neighbors. All three scripts — Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli — are on the UNESCO list together.
A mountain above Tbilisi with a funicular, a park on top and a pantheon where writers are buried. The name means 'holy mountain'. The whole city is visible from it, and people go up in the evening as if for a stroll.
The ancient capital, the spiritual center of the country and the place where Christianity was adopted in the fourth century. The Svetitskhoveli cathedral is said to keep the robe of Christ. The whole town is UNESCO listed.
Meat grilled over grapevine coals, without marinade — only salt, and onion afterwards. The vine gives its own smoke, and in that lies the difference from shashlik. A man always does the grilling, and he takes the meat off the skewer himself.
Fresh curd mass skimmed off boiled whey, soft and almost bland. Mixed with mint and wrapped in a thin sheet of sulguni — the starter of nearly any supra.
The quarters by the sulfur baths and along the Kura river: houses with carved wooden balconies overhanging the street, inner courtyards with a shared gallery and staircase. Half of them stand on props, and that is part of the look.
Boiled vegetables or herbs, chopped and pounded with walnut paste, garlic and spices, served as balls with a pomegranate seed on top. Spinach makes them green, beet bordeaux, beans brown.
Men singing in three independent voices where none repeats another — the first entry ever made on the UNESCO list. People sing at the table for no reason at all: a supra almost always slides into song.
An enormous egg-shaped clay vessel buried in the ground up to its neck, in which wine ferments and ages together with the skins and seeds. The technology is eight thousand years old and is on the UNESCO list.
A dark grape with red flesh and red juice alike — a rarity among varieties, and the wine comes out almost black. The name is from peri, dye: the variety is literally called 'the dyer'.
Turkey or chicken in a thick walnut sauce with garlic and spices, served cold. Made for New Year and Christmas and kept on the table for days. The name comes from tsiva, cold: warm is not how it is served.
Bread shaped like an elongated boat with a hole in the middle, baked stuck to the wall of a round clay oven. Crisp crust below, soft top. Bought hot and carried out of the bakery in your hands, not in a bag.
A tart cherry used for jam and lemonade. In Georgia it is kept apart from the sweet cherry by a separate word and never confused: the sweet one is bali, the sour one alubali — one syllable apart by ear.
Domed bathhouses on hot sulfur springs in old Tbilisi, heating themselves. Legend has it the city was founded because of these very springs. Inside: marble slabs, an attendant and a stiff mitt.
A salty cheese kneaded in hot whey until it stretches in layers. Young, it is soft and sour; smoked, dense and dark. It goes into khachapuri and fries in a pan until it crusts.
The feast as a rite, not just dinner: with a tamada leading, an order of toasts and the rule that you drink only to a toast. It lasts for hours, and leaving before the end is impolite. The word itself also means the tablecloth — what it all stands on.
A mountain region in the northwest with stone family towers in every yard: people hid in them from avalanches and blood feuds. They speak Svan there — a separate language, not a dialect.
The master of the feast, chosen at the start and obeyed to the end. He calls the toasts in the established order — to peace, to parents, to the departed, to children — and decides who speaks. An honorable and heavy role: he drinks on everyone's behalf.
A sour sauce of wild cherry plum with garlic and bog mint. Green when made from unripe fruit, red from ripe. Served with meat and potatoes; in a Georgian home it stands on the table as constantly as salt.
A round clay oven sunk into the floor with the fire at the bottom. The baker leans in to the waist and slaps the dough onto the hot wall. It works from dawn, and people find it by smell before they find the sign.
Ground walnuts with garlic, cilantro, utkho-suneli and wine vinegar, thinned to the thickness of sour cream. The base of half the Georgian dishes: satsivi, pkhali and baje all rest on it.
Why such words are in the course
These are a language's ID marks: they cannot be translated because the thing they name is not part of everyday life here, and they are exactly what you hear on day one. There are few of them on purpose — 44 words out of 4042 words in the course. A course where every seventh word is a local curiosity would teach local studies, not a language.
Every word here has its own page, with pronunciation, a look at the spelling and an example of use.
Frequently asked
Why can't these words simply be translated?
A translation assumes the thing exists here too and is just called differently. Not in this case: “a dhoni is a boat” is true and useless — there are many kinds of boat, and a dhoni is known by its tall curved prow and by being the only way between the islands. An explanation answers the question about the thing, not the word.
Do you have to learn them?
Not before everything else. But you will meet them early: local food is offered on the first day, and a festival is named without explanation. Knowing what stands behind a word is more useful than being able to translate it.