Category:Georgian terms with /f/

There is no such phoneme as /f/ in native Georgian vocabulary, with the possible exception of the interjection იფ. /f/ is, however, found in several foreign borrowings as a ‘xenophoneme’ sustained by contact with Russian and now increasingly English, the main donors of words with /f/.

Modern Georgian spelling lacks any specific way to indicate this imported /f/. Until approximately the nineteenth century the letter ჶ had been used for this purpose (and still is in Laz), thereafter discarded in an orthographic reform. Today /f/ can only be spelt as ფ (p), the letter that stands for the nearest native phoneme /pʰ/.

Where /f/ occurs, it is generally in free variation with /pʰ/. Often one pronunciation is clearly dominant, sometimes even exclusive, but whether this is /f/ or /pʰ/ varies from word to word. In general the oldest and best-integrated (into everyday language) loans tend towards the nativised /pʰ/.