Terms Nana and Iavnana

Abstract

Probably lullaby (Geo. Nana/Iavnana) is worldwide the most common and multi-dimensional form of the mother-child relationship. From conception and especially in the first years of a child’s life, his/her relationship with his/her parents, especially with his mother is of great importance for the formation of the personality and his psychological health. In this process, lullaby can have a great contribution. Georgian term Nana/Iavnana semantically also connected with the relation of a layman with “mythological mother”.

In this article, I have tried to discuss the meaning of the terms of the Georgian lullaby - Nana/Iavnana. Georgian researchers of Georgian folk musical heritage use these terms to refer to different types of songs. After studying some lexicological materials, I came to the assumption that Nana must originally have been a term denoting a prayer addressed to the Great Mother Nana in repentance asking mercy and hence, named after this deity.

Meanwhile, over time, this term could expand its meaning and be used to designate a secular lullaby, as happened with its melody. Perhaps the image of a secular mother separated from the mythological image of the all-Georgian Great Mother and established itself in everyday life. This process was supposed to expand the semantic meaning of the term Nana and obtain the meaning of mother, and later lullaby, mother, grandmother, and language.

The word Iavnana is not visible in dictionaries until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It appears in T. Sahokia’s work as hardship, helping somebody to consign to oblivion misfortune, bringing to sleep, caress, and in the explanatory dictionary of the 1980s Nana and Iavnana are synonyms and terms denoting lullaby.

I put forward an opinion about the specificity and meaning of Nana/Iavnana (lullaby) for Georgians, their identity, and their place in the religious worldview of Georgians. I also put forward a point about the contribution of Nana/Iavnana to the formation of Georgian identity.