The paper reports on the Georgian government’s language policy towards some of Georgia’s
ethnic and linguistic minorities of non-Georgian stock with focus on the Kists. It presents the
results of the original ethnographic research carried out in Georgia in August 2011. The
research primarily aimed to investigate the linguistic situation of the Kists, a linguistic and
national minority living in the Pankisi Gorge in north-eastern Georgia, and to identify their
language needs, as well as analyze the Kists’ attitude to the governmental language policy.
The ethnographic method of expert semi-structured interview was used as well, along with the
study of official governmental documents and secondary resources of ethnographers and
sociolinguists working in the field.