The Lithuanian authorities have officially renamed Georgia, in documents in the Lithuanian language the country will be called Sakartvelo. Audris Antanaitis, chairman of the State Commission for the Lithuanian Language, told BNS agency, Interfax reports.
“At the moment Sakartvelo (in Lithuanian Sakartvelas) is the official name,” Antanaitis noted.
On December 21, 2020, the commission excluded the word Gruzija from the document establishing the official names of states. The decision to rename was made two years ago. It provided for the use of “Sakartvelo” as the second unofficial name of the country, Antanaitis explained.
“It took a transitional period to see the willingness of society to accept this name. Obviously, it took root in society unusually quickly. I predicted 20 years, but it took root in two years. It was really unexpected,” said the head of the commission.
He added that the word “Georgia” can be used in public space.
In May 2018, the head of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry Linas Linkevicius said that on the eve of the centenary of Georgia’s independence, an “official decision” was made to call it Sakartvelo in Lithuanian. The Georgian ambassador expressed her hope that “the authentic name of Georgia, which is informally rooted among friends, will become very familiar to every Lithuanian and will be used in everyday life.”