Frankfurt U-Bahn has been decorated with the posters of Georgian alphabet. The posters are the reminder of the fact that Georgia is the honorary country of Frankfurt Book Fair 2018. Every year, the fair chooses a country as guest of honour.
The chosen country has a chance to introduce all its cultural and intellectual treasure to the international audience. The honourary country has a special opportunity of putting out its works through the major theatres, concert halls, galleries, cinemas, libraries and
Georgia decided to represent the country through the characters of Georgian alphabet at the fair. The concept of the project is “Georgia made by characters”. Cultural events of 72 Georgian writers and German translations of about 200 Georgian literary works will also be represented at the fair.
The beauty and uniqueness of the Georgian alphabet are recognized all over the world. Georgian scripts are among the only 14 existing scripts worldwide. Georgian scripts include three writing systems: Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli. The three systems show three levels of development of the Georgian alphabet. It is worth to admit that today all of them are still in use. The third system – Mkhedruli or designated for wider society is used as a literary language. The first two are used in church services – all of the books used in church and liturgy are written with the Nuskhuri and Asomtavruli script. Although the systems differ in appearance, all three are written in the lower case (in other words no capital letters are used).
Their letters share the same names and alphabetical order and are written horizontally from left to right. Mkhedruli is now the standard script of modern Georgian. The Georgian alphabet was announced as one of the world’s most beautiful scripts by www.matadornetwork.com (a collection of millions of travelers across the globe with an unquenchable thirst for adventure and exploration).
The fair is going to commence on the 9th of October.