Methods and Strategies for Studying Georgian as a Foreign Language by the First Europeans

Abstract

The tradition of Georgian as a foreign language study has rather deep historical roots; it begins from the 17th century and is connected to the activities of the European missionaries in Georgia. Almost two-centuries of practice of the Georgian language study have been described by the French and Italian missionaries in their own vocabularies and grammars. The missionaries’ activities and their vocabularies and grammars were assessed and analyzed from different standpoints, however, taking into account the modern methodology, empiric surveillance of Georgian as a foreign language study, their individual experiences and approaches have not still been considered. From the missionaries’ materials we see that  when studying the Georgian language they actively used the vocabularies, recorded the words frequently used in the local environment, and in brief grammars they mainly described the grammar categories necessary for the communication. We reckon, such practice of the language study is actual and valuable even today for those studying languages as well as for those practicing didactics, Georgian is thought to be the language having complicated morphological-syntactical systems.

For our research we have chosen Georgian-Italian and Italian-Georgian vocabularies of the 19th century (1852 - 1867). The vocabulary is kept in Rome - ORDO FF. MIN. CAPUCCINORUM Archives and its author is Emanuele Iglesias. Our aim is to establish the historical experience the missionaries had in the foreign language study practice, taking into consideration certain vocabulary, and how actual could be at the modern stage the foreign language study practice and strategy as described by the missionary authors. Analyses of the mentioned vocabulary give us the possibility to try to announce the standard description of the lexical part of the language knowledge levels, in particular, distinguish themes of language entities and separate the terms concerning treatment, medicines, and religion. Moreover, we have analyzed the grammatical part from the functional grammar standpoint. The research results show us, that Georgian as a foreign language, described in the vocabularies and grammars, was helping the missionaries to adapt to the linguistic and social environment.