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

(Samegrelo-Lazeti and Svaneti) struggling for the integrity of the nation.
Cf.: An unwritten language is considered to be a native language
of an underdeveloped ethnic group – an idiom which is not standardized
(normalized) and is not used as an official language in professional
creative process or administrative documentation) (for these purposes
such ethnos uses the literary language of another society).
We would like to emphasize that the historical literary language
for the Georgians of all regions is the Georgian language which is a
Kartvelian language; cf.: according to the history of the Georgian literary
culture, for many centuries the Megrels-Laz and the Svans, together
with other Georgians, have been creating one of the ancient literary culture
by means of the Georgian language which is their common historical
native languages 413 . All Kartvelian communities (population of historic-ethnographic
regions) is a creator of a centuries-old literary culture
414
; for instance, extensive materials on a high culture of creating and
maintaining extensive literary heritage, numerous ancient Georgian manuscripts
or pieces of goldsmithery could be found in the works of Metropolitan
Anania, T. Mibchuani, T. Gvantseladze, Kh. Bghazhba, V. Si-
413 Native language is an attribute of a linguistic socium – a nation; a language and a
nation function as mutually defining terms (G. Ramishvili, Theory on Native Language,
Tbilisi, 2000, p. 9, 70, 172). Cf.: “a language is a fundament for a nation” (I. Gogebashvili).
A language is an integral sign of a nation’s identity; though it does not mean that a
language always determines ethnicity; a particular individual may consider himself/herself
as a part of certain nation without knowing its language (there are many
such Georgians in Turkey) and vice versa: a person may know only a certain language
but consider himself/herself to belong to another nation (for instance, the Georgian
Jews). A language defines a nation but it does not define a nationality of an individual.
A language is a basis for a nation’s consciousness and culture (national consciousness),
a model for universe perception and not only a tool for communication.
414 See also, “Svaneti – A Shelter for Georgian Culture” (Tbilisi, 2008), a collection
published by St. Andrew the First Called Georgian University and a collection
“Abkhazeti” (Tbilisi, 2007). We would like to emphasize that, for instance, in IX-X centuries
the kings of western Georgia (Egrisi-Apkhazeti) (George I, Konstantine, Leon III,
etc.) in fact possessed Eastern and Southern Georgia; they created only the monuments
of Georgian culture in their own kingdom (L. Akhaladze, Epigraphy as a Source of Ethnocultural
History of Abkhazia and Samachablo, materials of the scientific conference
organized by the Georgian Patriatchate and Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation, Tbilisi,
2008). The unified Georgia and the Georgian culture which undergo the Persian-Arab
destruction was revived by the Kings of Apkhazeti-Egrisi and Tao-Klarjeti.
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