Dolittle in Svaneti

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The famed animal doctor who can communicate with all of his non-human patients visited recently and asked me to explain some of the words and phrases used by specific creatures and for specific purposes here in the mountains of Svaneti. Note, some of these may be used in other parts of Georgia as well, and possibly even outside the country, but always check to be sure you are saying what you THINK you are saying. This is so as not to cause your pigs to fight one another to the death or your poultry merely to scratch their heads with incomprehension, having landed on the backs of your bovines. The pronunciation is for standard (Tbilisi) Georgian.

Please also note, these words are not ever to be uttered towards any human, as they may cause significant insult after momentary confusion, a thing to be avoided among Svans at all costs, which might include one’s person becoming involved in injury or worse.

Bovine:

Dido: depart from hence

aishpsh aishpsh, or gheya gheya (see Porcine): come (for calves: dziunu dziunu)

Poultrine (technically, galline; possibly applicable towards ducks, geese, Guinea fowl and turkeys as well as chickens, but check for comprehensibility):

jiba jiba: enter my presence

ksh ksh: avast

Canine:

Sss: attack with extreme prejudice! (i.e. a person, other animal or other dog, especially in organized though technically illegal dog fights)

shisht’a: withdraw instantly and with no further displays of aggression, because I am the alpha creature

Porcine:

gheya gheya (see Bovine: a rare interspecies shared word): advance

Arm yourself with these words and phrases and you will be ready for basic level communication with any domesticated animal and for most necessary or common situations. They may not reply using these exact words, but you can at least be confident of being understood and, hopefully, obeyed! (Especially by the ones who know their place below us in the food chain. Perhaps less so by those whose diet might conceivably include Homo Sapiens, and thus might regard themselves occasionally as parallel to or even above us in said chain: not a thought worth contemplating to its logical conclusion).

Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 1500 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/

Tony Hamner