This article is within the scope of WikiProject Georgia (country), a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Georgia and Georgians on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Georgia (country)Wikipedia:WikiProject Georgia (country)Template:WikiProject Georgia (country)Georgia (country) articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ethnic groups, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles relating to ethnic groups, nationalities, and other cultural identities on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Ethnic groupsWikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groupsTemplate:WikiProject Ethnic groupsEthnic groups articles
Georgians are an ethnic group native to Georgia and the Caucasus, with diaspora communities throughout Russia, Turkey, Greece, Iran, Ukraine, the United States and the European Union. Georgians arose from Colchian and Iberian civilizations of classical antiquity. In the early 4th century, the Georgians became one of the first to embrace Christianity and now the majority of Georgians are Orthodox Christians. The Georgian nation was formed out of a diverse set of geographic subgroups, each with its characteristic traditions, manners, dialects and, in the case of the Svans and Mingrelians, regional languages. The Georgian language, with its own unique writing system and extensive written tradition, which goes back to the 5th century, is the official language of Georgia. According to the State Ministry on Diaspora Issues of Georgia, unofficial statistics say that there are more than five million Georgians across the world. This photograph, taken around 1888 in Mestia, shows an elderly Svan peasant with a dagger and smoking a long pipe. The image is in the collection of the Library of Congress in the United States.
Photograph credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden
Greetings Arctic Circle System! Lazs are part of the Kartvelian group and a subgroup of the Georgians; for more context you may see the respective article, where the Georgian Jews are the Jewish people in Georgia who are not related to the ethnicity. Regards, An emperor✖09:22, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Emperor of Emperors: Apologies for the late response, but while the Laz people article states that Lazs in Georgia consider themselves to be Georgians, it does not say the same about Lazs in Turkey. In addition, while the Georgian Jews are related to Iraqi Jews and Persian Jews in terms of genetics and parts of their culture stemming from Judaism, it should not go unsaid that the Georgian Jews also underwent significant assimilation into Georgian culture, with their traditional language being a dialect of Georgian. Arctic Circle System (talk) 15:40, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your response Arctic Circle System. The Laz being an indigenous group/subgroup in the Kartvelian family is well-extablished and predates Seljuk/Ottoman/Turkish expansion in Anatolia and their self-identification in the modern Turkish nationality cannot be used to even out in Georgians case. Lazs are grouped alongside the Mingrelians and have always been part of the Georgian ethnic grouping. As for the Georgian Jews, the assimilation is definitely a case but that cannot be an argument to make them as related to Georgians per ethnic sense. There are hundreds of thousands of Georgians historically assimilated with different nation, states, empires during its history (be it with Ottomans, Persians, Russians etc.) but that very assimilation does not make them related, be it linguistically or ethnically. Regards, An emperor✖18:44, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Arctic Circle System, the matter in question adressed here is regarding "related ethnic groups" and such classification and categorization of Lazs and Georgian Jews towards ethnic Georgians does not meet the ethnic or linguistic criteria. Regards, An emperor✖18:58, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Arctic Circle System, Jewish people are semites and Lazs are Kartvelian being a subgroup of Georgian grouping. Semites are not related to Georgians and Lazs are part of the Kartvelian family. Please refer to articles about linguistics and ethnicity. This is an established fact how language families etc. work. Regards, An emperor✖18:16, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So... I guess we're just ignoring the fact that Georgian Jews have traditionally spoken a distinctive dialect of Georgian, that being Judaeo-Georgian? And as for Lazs being considered Georgian because the most common name for the language family their language is in is Kartvelian, another name for Georgians, a common name for a given language family can imply, but does not prove on its own that a given group is a subgroup of another group. For instance, the Iban people of Borneo speak a Malayic language, but they are not Malays themselves. And you still haven't answered my question about what the criteria for one ethnic group to be related to another is. How closely related their languages are? Genetics? Cultural attributes? How many of those criteria need to be satisfied to meet the threshold required for a group to be featured in the related groups section of another group's infobox? Arctic Circle System (talk) 22:51, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Greetings Wikaviani & Arctic Circle System I understand that there is Judaeo-Georgian, but fact remains that the Jewish people are not related to Georgians. If we are to assume just an assimilation a factor for their related bond then we should have all the nationalities of Georgia under that category: Georgian Armenians, Georgian Greeks, Georgian Russians etc. Regards, An emperor✖02:16, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In essence, you're claiming that no ethnic mixing of any sort took place between "Semitic" Georgian Jews and the Kartvelian population? Moreover, can't "related ethnic groups" also point to culture rather than genetic markers? Shoshin000 (talk) 14:50, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ethnic mixing has happened with many different groups (e.g. Armenians, Greeks, Russian) but that doesn't make them "related" nations. With this logic everybody is "related"...It stretches meaning of what that section talks about.--LeontinaVarlamonva (talk) 17:17, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]