The Georgian alphabet — Mkhedruli — has 33 letters and exactly one form for each, because Georgian has no capital letters. Every letter spells exactly one sound, which makes reading easy; the sounds themselves, especially the six ejective consonants, are the real challenge. The chart gives every letter in order with its name, romanization, IPA, and nearest English sound.
All 33 letters of modern Georgian in alphabetical order. Georgian is unicameral — there is no upper or lower case, so each letter has exactly one shape. Apostrophes in the names and romanization mark ejective consonants, explained below the chart.
| Letter | Name | Romanization | IPA | Sounds like |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ა | an | a | /ɑ/ | a in "father" |
| ბ | ban | b | /b/ | b in "book" |
| გ | gan | g | /ɡ/ | g in "go" |
| დ | don | d | /d/ | d in "door" |
| ე | en | e | /ɛ/ | e in "met" |
| ვ | vin | v | /v/ | v in "vine", often relaxed toward w |
| ზ | zen | z | /z/ | z in "zoo" |
| თ | tan | t | /tʰ/ | t in "top", with a puff of air |
| ი | in | i | /i/ | ee in "see" |
| კ | k'an | k' | /kʼ/ | k with a throat pop and no air — ejective |
| ლ | las | l | /l/ | l in "lamp" |
| მ | man | m | /m/ | m in "map" |
| ნ | nar | n | /n/ | n in "note" |
| ო | on | o | /ɔ/ | o in "more" |
| პ | p'ar | p' | /pʼ/ | p with a throat pop — ejective |
| ჟ | zhan | zh | /ʒ/ | s in "pleasure" |
| რ | rae | r | /r/ | rolled or tapped r, as in Spanish "pero" |
| ს | san | s | /s/ | s in "sun" |
| ტ | t'ar | t' | /tʼ/ | t with a throat pop — ejective |
| უ | un | u | /u/ | oo in "boot" |
| ფ | par | p | /pʰ/ | p in "pot", with a puff of air |
| ქ | kan | k | /kʰ/ | k in "kite", with a puff of air |
| ღ | ghan | gh | /ʁ/ | French r in "rouge" — a gargled g |
| ყ | q'ar | q' | /qʼ/ | a k from deep in the throat, released as a pop — ejective |
| შ | shin | sh | /ʃ/ | sh in "shut" |
| ჩ | chin | ch | /tʃʰ/ | ch in "cheese", with a puff of air |
| ც | tsan | ts | /tsʰ/ | ts in "cats", with a puff of air |
| ძ | dzil | dz | /dz/ | ds in "kids" |
| წ | ts'il | ts' | /tsʼ/ | ts with a throat pop — ejective |
| ჭ | ch'ar | ch' | /tʃʼ/ | ch with a throat pop — ejective |
| ხ | khan | kh | /χ/ | ch in Scottish "loch" |
| ჯ | jan | j | /dʒ/ | j in "jam" |
| ჰ | hae | h | /h/ | h in "hat" |
The defining feature of Georgian is its ejective consonants — კ, პ, ტ, წ, ჭ, and ყ. To make one, close your vocal cords, build up pressure in the mouth, and release the consonant as a sharp pop with no breath behind it. Each ejective pairs off against an aspirated twin made with a puff of air: კ/ქ, პ/ფ, ტ/თ, წ/ც, ჭ/ჩ. The pairs are separate letters because they separate words — კარი (k'ari) is a door, ქარი (kari) is the wind, and ყ stands alone as an even deeper, uvular pop with no aspirated partner.
English actually contains both halves of each pair: the p in "spin" is unaspirated (close to Georgian ejectives, minus the pop) while the p in "pot" is aspirated like ფ. The trick is that English treats them as one sound, so your ear needs retraining before your mouth does. Hold a palm in front of your lips: თ, ფ, ქ, ჩ, ც should blow air onto it; ტ, პ, კ, ჭ, წ, ყ should not.
Everything else is friendly. Each letter spells exactly one sound and every letter is pronounced, so once you know the chart you can read any word — even a famous cluster monster like მწვრთნელი (mts'vrtneli, "trainer") is just its letters said in order. The five vowels ა, ე, ი, ო, უ are pure and never reduce, and stress is light, so nothing hides the way it does in English or Russian.
Georgian has been written in three scripts, and Mkhedruli is the youngest. The oldest, Asomtavruli, appears in the earliest surviving Georgian inscriptions — at the Bir el Qutt monastery near Bethlehem (430 AD) and the Bolnisi Sioni church (494 AD). Nuskhuri, an angular ecclesiastical hand, developed by the 9th century; church tradition credits the original invention to King Parnavaz in the 3rd century BC, though the earliest physical evidence is 5th-century.
Mkhedruli — from მხედარი (mkhedari, "horseman"), hence "military" or "cavalry" script — emerged in the 10th century for secular use; its earliest dated appearance is graffiti of 982–986 in the Ateni Sioni church. It became the script of royal charters and everyday life while the church kept the older hands, and in the 19th century the writer and reformer Ilia Chavchavadze led the cleanup that dropped five obsolete letters (ჱ, ჲ, ჳ, ჴ, ჵ), fixing the modern 33-letter alphabet.
All three scripts survive: Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri in church use, Mkhedruli everywhere else — and in 2016 UNESCO inscribed the "living culture of three writing systems of the Georgian alphabet" on its Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Unicode later added Mtavruli, tall display capitals used for emphasis and headlines, but these are styling forms: ordinary Georgian writing remains caseless.
33 in the modern Mkhedruli alphabet: 5 vowels (ა, ე, ი, ო, უ) and 28 consonants. The historical alphabet had 38, but five letters whose sounds had disappeared (ჱ, ჲ, ჳ, ჴ, ჵ) were dropped in the 19th-century reform led by Ilia Chavchavadze.
No — Georgian is one of the world's few unicameral national scripts. A sentence, a name, and a country all start with the same letterform. The tall letters you sometimes see in headlines are Mtavruli, a separate set of display forms used for emphasis, not a grammatical upper case.
To neither. Georgian writes a Kartvelian language and its three scripts form their own family, with letterforms unlike Cyrillic, Latin, Greek, or Armenian — though like Armenian (created 405 AD), it belongs to the same era of Caucasian alphabet-making, and both use one letter per sound. A Russian or Armenian reader cannot read Georgian without learning it from scratch.
Asomtavruli (5th century, monumental capitals), Nuskhuri (9th century, angular church script), and Mkhedruli (10th century, the modern everyday script on this page). The first two survive in Orthodox church use, and UNESCO recognized the living three-script culture as Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2016.
The apostrophe marks ejective consonants — sounds released as a throat pop with no breath. Georgian has six (კ, პ, ტ, წ, ჭ, ყ), five of which pair against aspirated twins written with separate letters. Dropping the distinction changes words: კარი (door) and ქარი (wind) differ only there.