Georgian, the national language of Georgians,  belongs to the Kartvelian (Iberian) group of Iberian-Caucasian languages . Georgian language is the only old-written language among Iberian-Caucasian languages.

Under literary Georgian language is to understand Old Georgian and  New  Georgian with  additonal  Middle Georgian (the 12th-18th centuries), where the latter should be considered as a transitional step between the Old and the New Georgian.
In the sound system the amount of consonants  exceeds the one of  vowels (28 consonants to 5 vowels) as it is typical for other Kartvelian and Mountain Iberian-Caucasian languages. There are no long and palatal (soft ა (a),ო (o),უ (u) vowels in literary Georgian.

Consonants  create  pairs (spirants:  ს (s)— ზ (z);  შ (š)—  ჟ (ž); ხ (x)— ღ (γ)) and triples (occlusives:  ბ (b)—  ფ (p)— პ (p̣/ ṗ); დ (d)—  თ (t)— ტ (ṭ);  ძ (ʒ)—  ც (c)— წ (c̣); ჯ (ǯ)— ჩ (č)— ჭ (č̣); გ (g)— ქ (k)— კ (ḳ) ). The triples are the result of  voiced, aspirate and abrupt consonants. Abrupt consonants are პ (p̣/  ṗ), ტ (ṭ), წ (c̣), ჭ (č̣),  კ (ḳ), also ყ (q̣/   q̇) (remainder of a triple). Abrupt consonants occur in all Iberian-Caucasian languages and they determine the so called "Caucasian Pronunciation" ("Accent").

The consonant system of literary Georgian has lost only one consonant during 15 centuries: ჴ (q), namely:  in plain dialects (Kartlian, Kakhetian, Imeretian). But it still exists in mountain dialects – Tushian, Khevsurian, Phshavian and Mokhevian [A. Chikobava, KSE, vol. 10, p. 475, Tbilisi, 1986].

The sound system of  Old and New Georgian reproduces the Georgian written language. The Georgian written language is represented in the national alphabet: SST 18.1 – "Information Technologies. 8-bit Single-byte Coded Graphic Character Sets. Georgian Alphabet. Part 1", SST 18.2 – "Information Technologies. 8-bit Single-byte Coded Graphic Character Sets. Georgian Alphabet. Part 2" and international – ISO 10586 – "Information and documentation — Georgian alphabet coded character set for bibliographic information interchange" (8-bit), Unicode (ISO/IEC 10646-1 – "Information technology – Universal Multiple-Octed Coded Character Set (UCS)" (16-bit) encoding standards.

The Georgian language falls into  different dialects. Traditionally, the latter are divided in the Eastern and the Western groups (some distinguish the Southern group in addition). This division is  based mainly on ethnic and geographic classificational principle. The linguistic criterion of dialects' classification lies in  the so called  unity of dialects' differences  [Sh. Dzidziguri, KSE, vol. 10, p. 478, Tbilisi, 1986].

There exist 18 dialects in Georgian: Acharian, Gurian, Tushian, Imeretian, Imerkhevian, Ingilo, Kakhian, Lechkhum, Meskhian, Mtiulian-Gudamakrian, Mokhe, Rachvelian, Phereidanian, Phshavian, Kartlian, Kizlar-Mozdokian, Khevsurian, Javakhian [KSE, vol. 10, pp. 477-480, Tbilisi, 1986].

The speech-sound system of  Georgian dialects is reproduced with the help of the  characters of the Georgian written language, from one side, and from another side, via combinations of this characters with different diacritical signs and additional graphemes.

[Howard I. Aronson, Modern Georgian,  pp. 219-312.  In: The Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus. Vol. 1. The Kartvelian Languages. Ed. by Alice C. Harris. Caravan Books. Delmar, New York, 1991. ]