The US Embassy has congratulated Georgia on Mother Language Day, emphasizing that April 14 is a credit to the Georgian people.
“On April 14, 1978, Georgians stood up against the Soviet Union’s attempt to strip the Georgian language of its status as the state language.
Today, we pay tribute to their courage and celebrate the beauty and uniqueness of the Georgian language.
Congratulations to our Georgian friends on Mother Language Day!” the statement reads.
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As a reminder, Georgia celebrates Mother Language Day on April 14. Forty-six years ago, in 1978, Soviet authorities decided to strip the local languages of the union republics of their status as state languages. Russian was to remain the only state language of the USSR.
A corresponding amendment was to be introduced to Article 78 of the Soviet Constitution of Georgia, under which the Georgian language would have lost its official status. It was scheduled for approval by the Supreme Council of Georgia on April 14, 1978. However, on that same day, several thousand people took to Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi to oppose the implementation of this plan. The majority of them were students.
A mass march was organized in the capital, moving from the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University to the Supreme Council building (now the parliament).
Similar developments unfolded in Batumi. There, the Constitution of the Adjara Autonomous Republic was to be adopted, from which the article on the Georgian language would also have been excluded.
The situation was becoming uncontrollable. The Soviet government was left with two choices: bloodshed or concessions. Official Moscow was forced to capitulate, and the constitutional amendments were not introduced.
April 14 was declared Mother Language Day. Historians believe that it was the events of April 14, 1978, that provided the first major impetus for the rise of the national movement in the country in the 1980s.
Notably, in 2016, UNESCO included all three types of Georgian script—“Asomtavruli” (or “Mrgvlovani”), “Nuskhuri” (from the 9th century), and “Mkhedruli” (from the 11th century)—in its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Modern Georgian has 33 letters: 5 vowels and 28 consonants. The alphabet was created no later than the 5th century.