"evropuli qartia saqarTvelo "European Charter for Regional or ...

districts and almost any villages of Germany different languages are
spoken but the literary language is one for all: the literary language is
regarded to be the one enriched by Luther, Lessing, Goethe, etc. If such
a multitudinous German nation that is a leader in education regards one
common literary language as a necessity who are we to recognize each
dialect as a literary language..." (P. Charaia, 1997, 203-204).
Cf., also, M. Janashvili and R. Erckert: in scientific literature the
Old Georgian language, with Svan dialect as its branch, is considered to
be the earlier type of Iberian (Kartvelian, Georgian) language. Continuation
of the same Old Georgian is the modern Georgian language with
its branch such as Megrelian as well as Laz (R. Erckert, 1895, p.287).
I. Gogebashvili (Oppressed among nations; 1894): "It is unprecedented
that the mean bureaucrats (that is officials of Russian empire)
take away the whole native region from the country, separate those united
by the will of God and nature, destroy brotherly union of thousand
years in order to weaken and rule both of them, ordering the whole region
that is quite a large part of the country to never recall its close and
brotherly relation with the motherland, to speak only a dialect and estrange
from the native language, to forget and reject the native alphabet
that has been invented with its contribution, to reject its native literature
to which it have made an equal contribution similar to its brothers, remove
its divine tongue which is mixed with its religion, to forget its historical
existence of thousand years and become barbarian that is supposed
to start everything from the beginning... stating the idea about
Megrelians as though they are not Georgians and they have no alphabet,
written language, literature, and everything is yet to be created means
that they are deprived of their glorious past and all the historical accomplishments;
it means we declare them mentally disabled and regard
them as barbarian tribes that have no history at all...".
Cf., also, Silovan Khundadze (Newspaper "Public Issue", 1919,
№709): comparing the forms of the Georgian language with the related
forms of the dialects while studying them increases interest; besides, it
is necessary for our young generation to know that Megrelian and Svan
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