კვლავ მეგრული „კუდიანი“ ანბანის შესახებ

Abstract

In the circular of the director of public schools of the Kutaisi province dated January 11, 1885, sent to the teachers of the elementary schools of Senaki and Zugdidi (Circular, 1885), it was mentioned that the Megrelian language, which is the main language of the absolute majority of the inhabitants of this region, is ignored in the schools of Samegrelo. Instead, two foreign languages are taught simultaneously: Georgian and Russian. To improve the current situation, teaching should become Megrelian-Russian, thereby fulfilling the requirement of state policy to improve the teaching of the Russian language in local schools. Georgian language should be excluded from schools in Samegrelo, which will free up time for teaching prayers and theology in Russian. The Russian alphabet was to be used for the Megrelian alphabet, which would help the bilingual Megrelian-Russian education in Samegrelo. In addition, it will be used to record and publish religious texts translated into the Megrelian language for the Megrelian daily newspaper and Megrelian textbooks for Samegrelo schools. Aleksey Gren, who worked under the guidance of Academician Radlov, was selected from the Faculty of Oriental Languages of St. Petersburg University to create the Megrelian alphabet. “When publishing the Megrelian alphabet, I also had this in mind,” writes Gren, “although not directly, I somehow challenged the Megrelians for the national struggle, who are oppressed by stronger Georgian people. Indeed, such a struggle is absolutely impossible without the possession of its own alphabet, with the help of which Megrelian expresses his thoughts in the same way as his enemy, in this case the Georgian, and, finally, without the alphabet, any science, even a spark of civilization, is impossible “(Archival Document, Rukhadze 1931, Rukhadze 1951). In parallel with this, the alphabet is created by Tada Ashordia, who could not do this work on his own. The paper deals with the Megrelian “tailed” alphabet which is used in Megrelian-Russian book published in Khoni under the supervision I. Petrov, teacher of the Kutaisi Teacher’s Seminary (Petrov). This name – Megrelian “tailed” alphabet, on the one hand, is ironic, due to its ulterior motive – pitting different parts of Georgia against each other and awakening the separatist movement in Samegrelo, and on the other hand, it reflects the main graphic feature of this alphabet – the addition of “tails” to Cyrillic characters (Bolkvadze 2011). In the same book, it is emphasized that this alphabet, which might be created with the participation of Tada Ashordia, belongs to the Russian Imperial Academy (Petrov). The paper deals with the phonetic and graphic features of the Megrelian tail alphabet, as well as the social and political context in which this alphabet was created.