Anmerkungen zum georgischen Konsonantismus: Giorgi Axvlediani und Dmitrij Evgen’evič Polivanov

Some annotations on the Georgian consonant system: Giorgi Axvlediani and Evgenij Dmitrievič Polivanov The present paper aims at introducing and republishing a short re- view article by the Georgian linguist Giorgi Axvlediani, which first appeared in 1926, putting it into its historical and epistemological context. The main issue was the classification of Georgian consonants proposed one year earlier by the Russian and Soviet scholar Evgenij Dmitrievič Polivanov. The discussion carried out by Polivanov involved both synchronic patterns and diachronic considerations, which were neither appreciated nor taken into account in the following years, not least because of the tragic destiny of its author, ostracised from the scientific community in the Soviet Union. For example, Axvlediani partially accepted Polivanov’s diachronic hypothesis, based on internal reconstruction, about the evolution of former pharyngeals into fricatives. In subsequent works he and other scholars further improved and developed this idea, but, curiously enough, Polivanov’s contribution was totally forgotten in the scientific literature devoted to this topic. At the end a new edition of the Georgian text, together with a German translation, is given.