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CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF GEORGIA 85
The Georgians, i.e. the Iberians of the Greeks, may have
forced their way in from the south, and to some extent ousted
the Moshi, or intermingled with them.
The Georgians call themselves Karthvelians or K’art’uli
(from K’art’u), whence the nåme of the part of the country
known as Karthlia, or Karthalinia (Kharthulia). As Leh
mann-Haupt l observes, K’art’u resembles Kardukh (i.e. the
Carduchi), a people mentioned by Xenophon (401 b.c.) 2 as
inhabiting the country by the eastern sources of the Tigris,
south of Lake Van. Kardukh may be an Armenian plural of
Kardu (compare Haikh from Hai), which may be the same
word as K’art’u, as the Georgian /’ in this word is very like
ad. The usual assumption that the Kardukh tribesmen were
the same as the Kurds of later times is untenable, as it was
not until very late that the Kurds migrated to these parts from
Persia. It is of interest in this connection that the Kardukh
country is full of ancient cave-dwellings of the same primitive
kind as those found in Georgia, especially at Vardzia. The
facts suggest that this may have been a tribe of the same race
as the Georgians, some of whom migrated to the north.
This would agree with the Georgian tradition, according to
which their forefathers came from the south.
As probable ancestors of the later Georgian tribes—
Karthlians, Imeretians, Mingrelians, Svanetians, Lazis and
others—wc may perhaps point to the Kharthulians, Moshi,
Tibareni, Colchians and Tsani (Lazis) ; and in the case of the
Kakhetians partly to Albanian tribes.
The Georgian or South-Caucasian languages are not
Indo-European like the Armenian tongue, and linguistic
experts have not yet succeeded in elucidating their relationships.
Lehmann-Haupt (op. eit., vol. ii, pp. 467, 497) believes that
both the language and the customs of the people exhibit
peculiarities which seem to point to an original affinity
with the pre-Armenian Khaldian people in Armenia. 3
1 C. F. Lehmann-Haupt, Armenia Einst und Jet^t, vol. ii, p. 104 f, 1910.
1 Anabasis, iv, 1-3.
3 In that case wc may perhaps ask whether there is any connection between
these names as such, viz., Khaldi and Khaldu, and the above-mentioned Kardu
and Kharthu. It depends upon whether the permutations in these languages
will admit of / becoming r. If the names were originally identical, it is not
impossible that the three races came of the same stock.
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