Mkhedruli Romanization Table

There are five systems for transcribing the Mkhedruli alphabet using Latin letters.

The American Library Association - Library of Congress (ALA-LC) uses its own system, as does ISO 9984. The ALA-LC system is available from the Library of Congress website. Copies of the ISO 9984 standard can be obtained from the Central Secretariat, ISO, Case postale 56, 1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland, or purchased from the ISO website.

The official system in Georgia as of February 2002 is called “National”. Information about this system is available from the UN Working Group Report (clicking the link will download the report in PDF format).

There are two different systems used in Turkey for transcribing the Laz language, one used more commonly than the other.

This table compares these five different systems.

Mkhedruli	ALA-LC	ISO 9984	National	Laz (common)	Laz (rare)
ა	A a	A a	A a	A a	A a
ბ	B b	B b	B b	B b	B b
გ	G g	G g	G g	G g	G g
დ	D d	D d	D d	D d	D d
ე	E e	E e	E e	E e	E e
ვ	V v	V v	V v	V v	V v
ზ	Z z	Z z	Z z	Z z	Z z
თ	T’ t’	T’ t’	T t	T t	T t
ი	I i	I i	I i	I i	I i
კ	K k	K k	K’ k’	K’ k’	Ḳ ḳ
ლ	L l	L l	L l	L l	L l
მ	M m	M m	M m	M m	M m
ნ	N n	N n	N n	N n	N n
ო	O o	O o	O o	O o	O o
პ	P p	P p	P’ p’	P’ p’	Ṗ ṗ
ჟ	Ž ž	Ž ž	Zh zh	J j	Ž ž
რ	R r	R r	R r	R r	R r
ს	S s	S s	S s	S s	S s
ტ	T t	T t	T’ t’	T’ t’	Ṭ ṭ
უ	U u	U u	U u	U u	U u
ფ	P’ p’	P’ p’	P p	P p	P p
ქ	K’ k’	K’ k’	K k	K k	K k
ღ	Ġ ġ	Ḡ ḡ	Gh gh	Ğ ğ	Ɣ ɣ
ყ	Q q	Q q	Q’ q’	Q q	Q’ q’
შ	Š š	Š š	Sh sh	Ş ş	Š š
ჩ	Č’ č’	Č’ č’	Ch Ch	Ç ç	Č č
ც	C’ c’	C’ c’	Ts ts	Ts ts / З з¹	C c
ძ	Ż ż	J j	Dz dz	Z’ z’	Ʒ ʒ
წ	C c	C c	Ts’ ts’	Ts’ ts’ / З’ з’¹	Ċ ċ
ჭ	Č č	Č č	Ch’ ch’	Ç’ ç’	Č’ č’
ხ	X x	X x	Kh kh	X x	X x
ჯ	J j	J̌ ǰ	J j	C c	Ǯ ǯ
ჰ	H h	H̱ ẖ	H h	H h	H h

The characters below are obsolete in Georgian but may be used by other languages.

Mkhedruli	ALA-LC	ISO 9984	Laz (common)	Laz (rare)
ჱ	Ē ē	Ē ē
ჲ	Y y	Y y	Y y	Y y
ჴ	X̣ x̣	H̱ ẖ
ჵ	Ō ō	Ō ō
ჳ	W w	W w
ჶ	F f	F f
ჷ	Ĕ ĕ
ჸ	‘

This article formerly appeared on ScriptSource.

Extension consonant for the Latin version of the Latin alphabet, often represented with the digit three (3). The Cyrillic letter ze (З/з) has been borrowed in newspapers published in the Socialist Republic of Georgia (within USSR) to write the missing Latin letter; modern orthographies used today also use the Latin digraphs Ts/ts for З/з and Ts’/ts’ for(З’/з’ ↩ ↩²

Mkhedruli Romanization Table

Footnotes