The transcription of the Georgian letter is sh.
'შ' is pronounced exactly like English 'sh' in 'she'.

Recordings:

შიში
შავი
შორს
shishi
shavi
shors
fear, fright
black
far away

შარშან შაშვმა ბავშვი შეაშინა.
sharshan shashv-ma bavshv-i sheashina 
[last year black bird-ERG child-NOM scared]
A black bird scared a child last year.

Click here to listen:
sh_f.mp3 Speaker 1
sh_m.mp3 Speaker 2

When pronouncing the consonant  the lips are slightly rounded and protruded, the tip of the tongue is retracted. The top of the front part of the tongue comes closer to the front part of the hard palate at the alveolae and creates an opening; the concave configuration of the middle part of the tongue tightens the top part creating two focuses.


The letter written or typed in this way is called shini.

It is traced out with one movement of the hand and is written between the three upper lines: movement of the hand begins below the upper line, goes upwards, and after drawing two attached semicircles from left to right, goes downwards vertically and ends by drawing a full circle from right to left between the upper and lower middle lines.



Back to the Georgian alphabet


© Manana Kock Kobaidze & Karina Vamling
Malmoe University