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Ritual and style across cultures 181

5.2. Drinking to wish God’s favor
Between 1988 and 2006 I spent altogether some 27 months in Georgia and col-
lected about 40 hours of sound recordings of toasts, offered mainly in Georgian
but also in German and in Russian.
Let us look at a toast made by a man (Cotne) from the capital city of Tbilisi,
who, with four others (including myself) from Tbilisi, was making a visit to the
country in the region Pshavi. Cotne drinks to the neighborhood and to the ex-
tended families of the Pshavs who are present. He invokes religious formulas in
line 43 (“I bless you all”) and in line 44 (“and may God give his favour to every-
one”) as it is normal. The start of the toast is clearly marked by a formal and cer-
emonial manner of speech.

Data 1
27 C:
adidos imati saxeli,
praised be the names of those,
28
romelnic tkveni xelidan vikas itxovs,
who await from your hands a glass,
29
da tkveni enidan saxelis
and from your tongues mention
30
gagonebas da satkmelis tkmas.
of their own names.
31 V: gaumarˇ Zos ((parallel conversation))
32
imat saxelsa da imat kacobas
to the names and to the humanity,
33
da imat vaz ˇkacobas
and to the virility
34
da imat kalobas,
and to the femininity of those,
35
vinc gverdit dagidian,
that accompany you,
36
avlil-c ˇavlilni mrude tvals ar gamogaqoleben,
and cast no disparaging looks at you,