St George slaying the Dragon

Georgians call themselves Kartvelebi (ქართველები), their land Sakartvelo (საქართველო), and their language Kartuli (ქართული). According to legend, the ancestor of the Kartvelian people was Kartlos, the great grandson of the Biblical Japheth.

The native Georgian name for the country is Sakartvelo (საქართველო). The word consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i (ქართველ-ი), specifies an inhabitant of the core central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli – Iberia of the Classical and Byzantine sources. By the early 9th century, the meaning of "Kartli" was expanded to other areas of medieval Georgia held together by religion, culture, and language. The Georgian circumfix sa-X-o is a standard geographic construction designating "the area where X dwell", where X is an ethnonym. The term Sakartvelo came to signify the all-Georgian cultural and political unity early in the 11th century and firmly entered regular official usage in the 13th century.

Ancient Greeks (Strabo, Herodotus, Plutarch, Homer, etc.) and Romans (Titus Livius, Cornelius Tacitus, etc.) referred to early eastern Georgians as Iberians (Iberoi in some Greek sources) and western Georgians(especially Mingrelians&Lazs) as Colchians.

The origin of the name Georgia is still disputed and has been explained in the following ways:

1. Linking it semantically to Greek and Latin roots (respectively, γεωργος "tiller of the land" and georgicus "agricultural")
2. Its derivation from the name of St. George. At least, popularity of the cult of Saint George in Georgia influenced the spread of the term.
3. Under various Persian empires (536 BC-AD 638), Georgians were called Gurjhān (Gurzhan/Gurjan), or "Gurj/Gurzh people." The early Islamic/Arabic sources spelled the name Kurz/Gurz and the country Gurjistan (see Baladhuri, Tabari, Jayhani, Istakhri, Ibn Hawqal, etc.). This also could evolve or at least contribute to the later name of Georgia.

The terms Georgia and Georgians appeared in Western Europe in numerous medieval annals including that of Crusaders and later in the official documents and letters of the Florentine de’Medici family. Jacques de Vitry and English traveler, Sir John Mandeville, stated that Georgians are called Georgian because they especially revere and worship Saint George. Notably, the country recently adopted the five-cross flag, featuring the Saint George's Cross; it has been argued that the flag was used in Georgia since the 5th century.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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