The Georgian alphabet: all 33 Mkhedruli letters and their sounds

The Georgian alphabet looks like nothing else in Europe, but it is kinder than it looks: 33 letters, no capitals in ordinary writing, and each letter stands for one main sound. This guide gives you the whole of Mkhedruli, the script Georgians use every day, then explains the sounds that give English speakers trouble. When you have the letters, our free Georgian level test shows where you stand.

Updated November 10, 2026 · 6 min read

Three alphabets, one living tradition

Georgian has more than one script, and UNESCO has recognised all of them. In 2016, the living culture of the three writing systems of the Georgian alphabet was added to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, by Committee decision 11.COM 10.B.13. UNESCO names the three as Mrgvlovani, Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli. Mrgvlovani came first, Nuskhuri derived from it, and Mkhedruli came after that.

As a learner, you need only Mkhedruli at first. UNESCO says Georgia's educational system is based on it. The two older scripts are practised mainly by the community of the Georgian Orthodox Church, and by craftspeople, scholars and some theological schools.

Under the Constitution of Georgia, Georgian is the official language of the country, and Abkhazian is too in the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia. The Unicode Standard adds that the script is also used for Svan and Mingrelian, is written from left to right, and, like Armenian, was devised in the fifth century under Greek influence. Other old scripts have their own stories: compare Chinese characters and Japanese kana and kanji.

All 33 letters

Unicode's chart shows 33 letters in the standard modern run, from ა to ჰ, and treats the few others as archaic or as additions for other languages. The sounds below follow Wiktionary's Georgian pronunciation table. The last column is our rough guide for English speakers, and a few sounds have no real English match.

The sounds that take practice

Look at the table again and you will see two versions of what English treats as one sound: თ and ტ are both t-like, and the same split runs through ქ/კ, ფ/პ, ც/წ and ჩ/ჭ. The first letter in each pair has a small puff of air. The second is ejective, marked ʼ: the air is held back and released with a short pop.

Georgian also allows consonants to pile up at the start of a word. Wiktionary's transcription of თბილისი (Tbilisi) begins tʰb], and that of [წყალი (water) begins with two ejectives in a row, [t͡sʼχʼ]. Do not add a vowel between them. Say each consonant clearly and let the next one follow straight away.

Speaking is where a teacher pays off, because you cannot easily hear your own ejectives. If you want feedback from a person, the closing note under this guide tells you where to find live practice.

No capital letters, usually

Mkhedruli has, in Unicode's words, "been fundamentally caseless since its development". Sentences and names begin with the same letters as everything else, so you do not need to learn two forms of each letter.

There is one exception you will notice in headlines and emphasised text: Mtavruli, an all-capitals style in which the letters stand at equal height. Unicode gave it formal uppercase status in Version 11.0, but it is not used for capitalising the first letter of a word as English does. Here is Unicode's own example, the name of the scholar Akaki Shanidze:

Nine words to read

Every word here was checked on Wiktionary. Cover the middle column and try to sound each one out.

The Latin column is only a reading aid, and the apostrophe marks an ejective. Georgians call their own country Sakartvelo, which is worth knowing the first time you see it on a map or a sign.

A ten-day plan for the letters

1. Days 1–2: the five vowels (ა ე ი ო უ) and the sounds English shares: ბ გ დ ვ ზ ლ მ ნ ს შ ჰ.
2. Days 3–4: ჟ რ ძ ჯ, and write out the nine words above from the Latin column.
3. Days 5–7: the air-and-catch pairs, one pair a day if you need it: თ/ტ, ქ/კ, ფ/პ, ც/წ, ჩ/ჭ.
4. Days 8–9: the deep sounds ღ ყ ხ, then words beginning with two consonants.
5. Day 10: read a Georgian sign, menu or headline without the Latin, and start on vocabulary.

This is our suggested order, not an official course. Georgian is one of the newest languages on 16Word and is marked New: our word lists are machine-authored, are waiting for native review, and have almost no recordings yet. Use them for reading and vocabulary, and go to native speakers for the sounds.

Keep learning

• Free Georgian level test, or all 36 level tests
• The languages around Georgia: Turkish, Azerbaijani and Russian level tests
• Free Greek level test and the Greek Certificate of Attainment
• Other scripts: Serbian's two alphabets and Devanagari for Hindi
• Scripts of the neighbours: the Russian alphabet and the Arabic alphabet
• All our guides and plans and prices