Adapting English Sports Terminology into Georgian: Mechanisms of Transliteration, Translation, and Hybridisation

Abstract

This article examines the systematic integration of English sports terminology into Georgian, investigating the phonological, morphological, and semantic mechanisms through which English loanwords are assimilated into a typologically distant language system. Drawing on data collected from Georgian sports media, televised broadcasts, and social media platforms across a twelve-month period (January - December 2024), the study classifies English-derived sports terms according to a four-category taxonomy: pure transliteration, full translation, hybrid localisation, and full localisation. Georgian, as the sole surviving member of the South Caucasian (Kartvelian) family, presents distinctive phonological challenges an elaborate ejective consonant inventory and a constrained five-vowel system that fundamentally govern loanword integration. Analysis of 57 sport names and over 80 associated technical terms reveals that hybrid localisation constitutes the dominant adaptive strategy (45%), followed by pure transliteration (30%) and full translation (25%); no instances of full localisation were identified in the present corpus. Qualitative examination further documents principled phonological correspondence rules consonant substitution, epenthetic vowel insertion, and aspiration remapping alongside notable semantic narrowing in specific borrowings. These findings situate Georgian sports lexicography within broader cross-linguistic patterns of globalisation-driven language change while attesting to the resilience of Georgian linguistic identity.