Descendants of Muhajir Georgians in Giresun (Turkey) and their speech codes

Abstract

In our article we review a Georgian dialectal speech of the Georgian Muhajirs’ descendants in Giresun, Turkey. All the research materials are obtained by us during the expedition July 8-19, 2019 in Turkey, Karadeniz (Black Sea Coast) region. In the article, all the Illustrative phrases in Georgian are transcribed with specific Latin-based transcription for Ibero-Caucasian Languages. The most part of Muhajir Georgians’ Giresun descendants have preserved the Georgian ethnical self-concept. Due to the code-switching process going on during 140 years the historical mother tongue is only spoken by the older generation; their knowledge of the Turkish language is mostly poor. The people of middle generation are usually bilingual speaking both Georgian and Turkish. The younger generation speaks only Turkish, which they consider more prestigious than the mother tongue of their ancestors. Consequently, the Acharan dialect of Georgian spoken in Giresun is at risk of going extinct in the near future. The risk is increased by the fact that the representatives of younger generation who want to know their ancestors’ language and develop friendly relations with Georgia are learning the literary Georgian: having learnt the literary Georgian they try to speak “correctly” and avoid using dialects.