Unicode Demystified

The Georgian Alphabet

The Georgian alphabet, like the Armenian alphabet, is essentially a one-language alphabet, being used just to write Georgian (although it once was used to write Abkhasian). A number of different traditions explain the origin of the Georgian alphabet (including an Armenian tradition attributing it to St. Mesrop, who is said to have invented the Armenian alphabet), but none seems to have much currency.^[6] The first example of Georgian writing dates from 430. The Georgian alphabet seems to be based, at least in its ordering and general characteristics, on the Greek alphabet, although the letterforms appear to have been independent inventions.

^[6] My sources for this section are Dee Ann Holisky, “The Georgian Alphabet,” in