Formerly professor of Georgian at Jena University, Heinz Fähnrich (HF), is the prolific author of works on Georgian (indeed Kartvelian) grammar, lexicology, history and literature. He published in 1986 his Kurze Grammatik der georgischen Sprache, rendered into German his mentor Ak'ak'i Shanidze's grammar of Old Georgian (OG) and published it in Tbilisi in 1982 under the title Grammatik der altgeorgischen Sprache, and followed this up in 1994 with his own similarly titled Hamburg publication, having contributed the article on OG to Caravan Books’ 1991 Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus, 1: South Caucasian. The present voluminous tome combines grammars of OG (pp. 1–436) and Modern Georgian (MG) (pp. 511–828); the remaining pages consist of: discussions of the OG lexical stock (pp. 437–98) and the differences between the languages (pp. 499–510), where the loss of OG's habituals is unmentioned, a list of recommended reading (pp. 829–42), and the index.

Both parts of this book essentially represent enlarged versions of HF's two earlier offerings (with some additions, greater exemplification, moderate reordering, and some judicious omissions); the most noticeable difference is that the original script replaces transcription. Disappointingly, many of my critical comments of HF's 1994 work (see BSOAS 59/2, 1996) still apply, and so the present remarks should be read in conjunction with that review. The overall impression is that, despite the increase in examples, problems remain regarding presentation (including choice, sequencing and sometimes even inappropriate placement of materials) and the nature and/or (in)completeness of explanations accompanying verbal paradigms and syntactic constructions; no morpheme-glosses are given, regardless of how complex the illustrations. Setting section headings in bold would have facilitated quick searches.

The verbal paradigms indicate that some verbs contain no vowel in the root for 1^st Series TMAs (= “screeves”) but gain one in the Aorist (sometimes for all three subjects, sometimes for only 1^st/2^nd person subjects) – the precise conditions are not explained. Occasionally, screeves are arbitrarily omitted. The intransitive suffix -n- should be erased from the 3^rd Series forms of “be silent before” (p. 248). The verb u-vi is still translated with its arguments reversed (not “ich habe ihn” but “er hat mich”). Combining the grammars of both languages in one volume could have allowed for the MG section to recapitulate (where they still exist) OG's verbal paradigms, thereby enabling readers to see at a glance contrasts of the type: OG gan-m-i-gh-eb-ie-s “I have opened X” (p. 160, with thematic suffix -eb-) vs MG ga-m-i-gh-i-a (minus suffix), but the chance was lost. On p. 228, the conjugation for “cry” still switches in Series III from true Medial (= HF's “intransitive active”) to the root's inceptive formation. OG's speech-particles are discussed twice (under Partikel, pp. 324–5, and under Indirekte Rede, p. 434), and the same error is made in describing the meaning of the formant -tko/-tkva (unmentioned in 1994) in both places: the usage is exactly as in MG (pp. 761–2), namely when the speaker instructs the addressee what precise words the latter is to relate to a third party, and in origin the particle is not the third person singular Aorist Indicative (“hat er gesagt”) but the second person singular of the Aorist Subjunctive (“sollst du sagen”). It would have been helpful to assign names to the various version vowels (Charaktervokale) (pp. 376–7). Only yes/no questions are described under Fragesätze (p. 401). A general comment on Subordination (Satzgefüge) (pp. 404–30) would be that not only should all the conjunctions be listed but also combinations with the full range of possible screeves as well as descriptions of the different senses associated with this or that screeve, an observation that applies to the MG section too. The definition and exemplification of subject clause (Subjektsatz, p. 405) still betrays an inability to distinguish between subject complements and relative clauses. The first example on p. 425 does not exemplify a final clause, being an indirect command; similarly, the last example on p. 425 illustrates a temporal clause “until” (Matthew 13:33), and the first two examples on p. 426 do not illustrate purpose.

In the MG section one can note the following. Meanings should be assigned to she-m-i-q'var-d-eb-a “I shall fall in love with X” and she-v-i-q'var-eb “I shall conceive a love for X” (p. 713); similarly for the root -nd- “want” on p. 729, where the Future and Aorist should respectively appear as mo-m-i-nd-eb-a and mo-m-i-nd-a. The third person plural of the copula's Aorist Subjunctive (p. 716 et passim) is i-q’-o-n, whether standing alone or as part of the third Subjunctive, although the older form presented here (i-q'v-nen) is also possible. On p. 734 i-ch'm-eb-a and i-s-m-eb-a should stand alongside i-ch'm-ev-a “it is edible” and i-s-m-ev-a “it is potable”. There is no evidence for the assumption (pp. 797 and 815) that the third Subjunctive (Konjunktiv Perfekt) was ever the norm in past irrealis subordinate clauses, subsequently yielding to the Pluperfect – the third Subjunctive's use in such contexts in the Rach'an dialect is probably an innovation. The example rats ginaxavs, veghar naxav “What you have seen you won't be able to see again” (p. 808) does not exemplify a relative clause substituting for a sentential object complement, as stated – it is simply a relative clause qualifying the main verb's understood pronominal object. Real and unreal conditions are not clearly differentiated (pp. 813–4). The rare collocation of prohibitional particle nu with the Perfect is exemplified in two examples (p. 819), the first of which (me rom gaktseuli k'urdgheli minaxavs, imisi xortsi nu mich'amiao) is translated as “X said: ‘If I have not seen an escaped hare, then I will not have eaten its flesh!’”, whereas the meaning is surely “X said: ‘Let me not eat the flesh of the escaped hare I've seen!’”. The element ra is stated (p. 823) to strengthen an imperative, whereas in fact it softens it.

This is not a work for beginners, and its usefulness as a reference grammar is sadly diminished by the above shortcomings, though the OG section is the most comprehensive account of this language in a western European language to date.