Thomas Wier
@trwier.bsky.social
Linguist & Caucasologist • Professor at the Free University of Tbilisi • Research languages of the Caucasus, the Tonkawa language • Author of 'Tonkawa Texts' • Weekly Georgian Etymologies
Academic research: https://freeuni.academia.edu/ThomasWier
Academic research: https://freeuni.academia.edu/ThomasWier
Something similar probably happened to bazhe sauce, which gets its name metaphorically for the rich 'tax' or 'duty' used to make walnut paste with garlic, salt, vinegar, fenugreek, coriander, marigold and red pepper:
November 25, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Something similar probably happened to bazhe sauce, which gets its name metaphorically for the rich 'tax' or 'duty' used to make walnut paste with garlic, salt, vinegar, fenugreek, coriander, marigold and red pepper:
For example, the famous melange of stewed vegetables called ajapsandali, which in Ottoman Turkish literally means 'marvelous barge' receives its name as a metaphor for the surprise awaiting hungry diners:
Weekly Georgian Etymology: აჯაფსანდალი ajapsandali, from Ottoman Turkish عجب acep wondrous marvelous and صَنْدَل sandal, vessel for bringing victuals and water, from Arabic عَجَب ʕajab marvel and Greek σάνδαλον barge. In Turkish gastronomy, many dishes take poetic/jocular names.
November 25, 2025 at 9:54 AM
For example, the famous melange of stewed vegetables called ajapsandali, which in Ottoman Turkish literally means 'marvelous barge' receives its name as a metaphor for the surprise awaiting hungry diners:
But it also represents a difference between eastern and western Georgia in how they named their dishes. Here, dishes are named not just by their ingredients or preparation, but often with more poetic or jocular names, as was the case in nearby Ottoman Turkey.
November 25, 2025 at 9:48 AM
But it also represents a difference between eastern and western Georgia in how they named their dishes. Here, dishes are named not just by their ingredients or preparation, but often with more poetic or jocular names, as was the case in nearby Ottoman Turkey.
This probably reflects how early Georgian cookbooks reflected the tastes and traditions of eastern Georgian food culture of Kartli and Kakheti, where the Georgian language and its idioms are dominant. Here people simply didn't use the Megrelian word for similar sauces.
November 25, 2025 at 9:48 AM
This probably reflects how early Georgian cookbooks reflected the tastes and traditions of eastern Georgian food culture of Kartli and Kakheti, where the Georgian language and its idioms are dominant. Here people simply didn't use the Megrelian word for similar sauces.
All scholars agree that the classic Georgian bazhe sauce, made from walnuts, garlic and vinegar, is in origin a Megrelian sauce, hailing from western Georgia. Despite its importance, it not attested until the 20th century -- it is not e.g. found in Barbare Jorjadze's 1874 famous cookbook.
November 25, 2025 at 9:45 AM
All scholars agree that the classic Georgian bazhe sauce, made from walnuts, garlic and vinegar, is in origin a Megrelian sauce, hailing from western Georgia. Despite its importance, it not attested until the 20th century -- it is not e.g. found in Barbare Jorjadze's 1874 famous cookbook.
In Georgian cuisine, a ketsi is a commonplace part of meals for cooking and serving mushrooms, cheese, chicken and other kinds of stews. Here for example is the famous Shkmeruli dish, made from fried chicken in a bath of milk, garlic and other spices:
November 17, 2025 at 3:32 PM
In Georgian cuisine, a ketsi is a commonplace part of meals for cooking and serving mushrooms, cheese, chicken and other kinds of stews. Here for example is the famous Shkmeruli dish, made from fried chicken in a bath of milk, garlic and other spices:
Such word-boundary reanalysis is common in unfamiliar loanwords. Just think of English 'orange', which comes ultimately from Arabic نَارَنْج nāranj, but where the initial /n/ was along the way reanalyzed not as part of the noun but as part of the article: *a norange > an orange.
November 17, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Such word-boundary reanalysis is common in unfamiliar loanwords. Just think of English 'orange', which comes ultimately from Arabic نَارَنْج nāranj, but where the initial /n/ was along the way reanalyzed not as part of the noun but as part of the article: *a norange > an orange.
Did Kartvelian borrow this word from Nakh-Daghestanian, or vice-versa? This is hard to tell, because ND sound-changes are so poorly understood. A plausible scenario is that Kartvelian borrowed ND *kɨ̄ṭV- and reanalyzed it based on following case suffixes:
*ket-sa (DAT) > kec-sa
*ket-sa (DAT) > kec-sa
November 17, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Did Kartvelian borrow this word from Nakh-Daghestanian, or vice-versa? This is hard to tell, because ND sound-changes are so poorly understood. A plausible scenario is that Kartvelian borrowed ND *kɨ̄ṭV- and reanalyzed it based on following case suffixes:
*ket-sa (DAT) > kec-sa
*ket-sa (DAT) > kec-sa
Because the word is found in Svan with regular sound-reflexes, we can surely reconstruct it to Proto-Kartvelian. But even protolanguages borrowed words, and Nakh-Daghestanian broadly features this root across subfamilies, indicating its antiquity there:
November 17, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Because the word is found in Svan with regular sound-reflexes, we can surely reconstruct it to Proto-Kartvelian. But even protolanguages borrowed words, and Nakh-Daghestanian broadly features this root across subfamilies, indicating its antiquity there:
As this shows, the word could originally refer to a wide variety of clay-fired stoneware, still reflected in the Svan meaning:
Megrelian კიცი ḳici clay pan
Laz კიცი ḳici clay pan
Svan კეც ḳec wine amphora, kvevri
Zan *e regularly shifts to /i/ before coronal obstruents.
Megrelian კიცი ḳici clay pan
Laz კიცი ḳici clay pan
Svan კეც ḳec wine amphora, kvevri
Zan *e regularly shifts to /i/ before coronal obstruents.
November 17, 2025 at 11:16 AM
As this shows, the word could originally refer to a wide variety of clay-fired stoneware, still reflected in the Svan meaning:
Megrelian კიცი ḳici clay pan
Laz კიცი ḳici clay pan
Svan კეც ḳec wine amphora, kvevri
Zan *e regularly shifts to /i/ before coronal obstruents.
Megrelian კიცი ḳici clay pan
Laz კიცი ḳici clay pan
Svan კეც ḳec wine amphora, kvevri
Zan *e regularly shifts to /i/ before coronal obstruents.
The word is first used in the context not of food but for drinking wine: ანტლეტერეონი ღჳნისა ამოსაღებელად არს ტარი გრძელი ვითარცა ჭაშაში სიღრმისათჳს კეცისა მის ღჳნისა ამოსაღებელად 'An antletereon is a long handle for ladling wine, just as one ladles to the bottom of a chalice'
November 17, 2025 at 11:15 AM
The word is first used in the context not of food but for drinking wine: ანტლეტერეონი ღჳნისა ამოსაღებელად არს ტარი გრძელი ვითარცა ჭაშაში სიღრმისათჳს კეცისა მის ღჳნისა ამოსაღებელად 'An antletereon is a long handle for ladling wine, just as one ladles to the bottom of a chalice'
So this word ლეკვი leḳvi puppy ultimately is connected not only to more familiar words like English wolf, Latin lupus, and Russian волк, it is also indirectly related to the name of Georgia itself.
November 10, 2025 at 10:47 AM
So this word ლეკვი leḳvi puppy ultimately is connected not only to more familiar words like English wolf, Latin lupus, and Russian волк, it is also indirectly related to the name of Georgia itself.
This is because Middle Persian gurg became the base of Gurgistan, which was folk-etymologized in Greek to Georgia:
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-the-US-state-of-Georgia-and-the-country-of-Georgia-have-the-same-name/answer/Thomas-Wier
t.co
November 10, 2025 at 10:46 AM
This is because Middle Persian gurg became the base of Gurgistan, which was folk-etymologized in Greek to Georgia:
Another interesting side-note is that because the Old Persian form 𐎺𐎼𐎣 vr̥kaʰ evolved into Middle Persian gurg, this also became the exonymous form used to describe Georgia for outsiders because of its ancient wolf-cult:
x.com/thomas_wier/...
x.com/thomas_wier/...
Thomas Wier on X: "Weekly Georgian Etymology: ვახტანგი Vaxṭangi, man's personal name. From Scythian *warx-tang 'wolf-bodied', from Indo-Iranian *wŕ̥kas wolf & *tanúHs body, from PIE *wĺ̥kʷos & *tenuh₂-. Name of many Georgian kings, it reflects the totemic role of wolves in the ancient Caucasus. https://t.co/PA7bqfuF5O" / X
Weekly Georgian Etymology: ვახტანგი Vaxṭangi, man's personal name. From Scythian *warx-tang 'wolf-bodied', from Indo-Iranian *wŕ̥kas wolf & *tanúHs body, from PIE *wĺ̥kʷos & *tenuh₂-. Name of many Georgian kings, it reflects the totemic role of wolves in the ancient Caucasus. https://t.co/PA7bqfuF5O
x.com
November 10, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Another interesting side-note is that because the Old Persian form 𐎺𐎼𐎣 vr̥kaʰ evolved into Middle Persian gurg, this also became the exonymous form used to describe Georgia for outsiders because of its ancient wolf-cult:
x.com/thomas_wier/...
x.com/thomas_wier/...
Several Indo-European branches featured an L-initial form for wolf, including Hellenic, Italic and Paeonian, a poorly attested Paleo-Balkan language. So it may have been a feature of that region's IE languages. Other IE words often preserved the initial *w:
November 10, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Several Indo-European branches featured an L-initial form for wolf, including Hellenic, Italic and Paeonian, a poorly attested Paleo-Balkan language. So it may have been a feature of that region's IE languages. Other IE words often preserved the initial *w:
The word is in turn a loan from a late Indo-European form *lúkʷos, whose metathesis probably reflects some kind of taboo deformation: across languages, it is common for speakers to alter a taboo word for wild animals. Cf. Slavic медведь for bear, lit. 'honey-eater'.
November 10, 2025 at 10:14 AM
The word is in turn a loan from a late Indo-European form *lúkʷos, whose metathesis probably reflects some kind of taboo deformation: across languages, it is common for speakers to alter a taboo word for wild animals. Cf. Slavic медведь for bear, lit. 'honey-eater'.
The word is surely reconstructed back to Georgian-Zan by regular sound-laws:
Geo ლეკვი leḳvi
Megr ლაკვი laḳvi
Laz ლაკი laḳi
In Zan languages, *e regularly shifts to /a/, while the Laz form comes from loss of /v/ before /o/ in ლაკოტი leḳoṭi 'little puppy'. Svan lacks this cognate.
Geo ლეკვი leḳvi
Megr ლაკვი laḳvi
Laz ლაკი laḳi
In Zan languages, *e regularly shifts to /a/, while the Laz form comes from loss of /v/ before /o/ in ლაკოტი leḳoṭi 'little puppy'. Svan lacks this cognate.
November 10, 2025 at 10:13 AM
The word is surely reconstructed back to Georgian-Zan by regular sound-laws:
Geo ლეკვი leḳvi
Megr ლაკვი laḳvi
Laz ლაკი laḳi
In Zan languages, *e regularly shifts to /a/, while the Laz form comes from loss of /v/ before /o/ in ლაკოტი leḳoṭi 'little puppy'. Svan lacks this cognate.
Geo ლეკვი leḳvi
Megr ლაკვი laḳvi
Laz ლაკი laḳi
In Zan languages, *e regularly shifts to /a/, while the Laz form comes from loss of /v/ before /o/ in ლაკოტი leḳoṭi 'little puppy'. Svan lacks this cognate.
Though attested already in the late 10th century, its most famous use comes from Rustaveli's 12th century Knight in the Tiger Skin in a line proverbially famous to every Georgian:
ლეკვი ლომისა სწორია, ძუ იყოს, თუნდა ხვადია
A lion's cub is still a lion, be it male or female
ლეკვი ლომისა სწორია, ძუ იყოს, თუნდა ხვადია
A lion's cub is still a lion, be it male or female
November 10, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Though attested already in the late 10th century, its most famous use comes from Rustaveli's 12th century Knight in the Tiger Skin in a line proverbially famous to every Georgian:
ლეკვი ლომისა სწორია, ძუ იყოს, თუნდა ხვადია
A lion's cub is still a lion, be it male or female
ლეკვი ლომისა სწორია, ძუ იყოს, თუნდა ხვადია
A lion's cub is still a lion, be it male or female
This idea of a 'leaf-comb' is not unique to Kartvelian, as it is found in other languages:
Arabic مِشْط mišṭ comb or rake
Welsh cribin rake, from crib 'comb'
And in Nakh-Daghestanian lgs, *q:ʷa(n)ṭa means broom, rake in some lgs, but comb in others.
Arabic مِشْط mišṭ comb or rake
Welsh cribin rake, from crib 'comb'
And in Nakh-Daghestanian lgs, *q:ʷa(n)ṭa means broom, rake in some lgs, but comb in others.
November 5, 2025 at 10:06 AM
This idea of a 'leaf-comb' is not unique to Kartvelian, as it is found in other languages:
Arabic مِشْط mišṭ comb or rake
Welsh cribin rake, from crib 'comb'
And in Nakh-Daghestanian lgs, *q:ʷa(n)ṭa means broom, rake in some lgs, but comb in others.
Arabic مِشْط mišṭ comb or rake
Welsh cribin rake, from crib 'comb'
And in Nakh-Daghestanian lgs, *q:ʷa(n)ṭa means broom, rake in some lgs, but comb in others.
The word is in turn an ancient compound of *purcʲ- leaf (from which Georgian gets ფურცელი purceli leaf, sheet) and *cx- comb:
Old Geo: საცხინველი sacxinveli a comb
Meg: რცხონუა rcxonua to comb
Laz: ოცხონუ ocxonu to comb
Svan: ლიცხე:ნე licxēne to comb
Old Geo: საცხინველი sacxinveli a comb
Meg: რცხონუა rcxonua to comb
Laz: ოცხონუ ocxonu to comb
Svan: ლიცხე:ნე licxēne to comb
November 5, 2025 at 10:06 AM
The word is in turn an ancient compound of *purcʲ- leaf (from which Georgian gets ფურცელი purceli leaf, sheet) and *cx- comb:
Old Geo: საცხინველი sacxinveli a comb
Meg: რცხონუა rcxonua to comb
Laz: ოცხონუ ocxonu to comb
Svan: ლიცხე:ნე licxēne to comb
Old Geo: საცხინველი sacxinveli a comb
Meg: რცხონუა rcxonua to comb
Laz: ოცხონუ ocxonu to comb
Svan: ლიცხე:ნე licxēne to comb
This particular word is found in Georgian, but it seems a likely loan from Megrelian: *cʲ- regularly becomes /c/ in Georgian, but /č/ in Megrelian and Laz. This is a strong indication the word goes back at least to Georgian-Zan: otherwise we would see no sound correspondence.
November 5, 2025 at 10:06 AM
This particular word is found in Georgian, but it seems a likely loan from Megrelian: *cʲ- regularly becomes /c/ in Georgian, but /č/ in Megrelian and Laz. This is a strong indication the word goes back at least to Georgian-Zan: otherwise we would see no sound correspondence.
In each of these forms, an /r/ coda consonant has been lost, a common kind of sound change in the history of Georgian. We can see this because the /r/ has survived in some dialect words like ფორჩხი porčxi.
November 5, 2025 at 10:05 AM
In each of these forms, an /r/ coda consonant has been lost, a common kind of sound change in the history of Georgian. We can see this because the /r/ has survived in some dialect words like ფორჩხი porčxi.