Saberdzneti (Georgian: საბერძნეთი [saberdznetʰi]) was an ambiguous geographic term used in medieval and early modern Georgian historical sources to refer to Ancient Greece, Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire, while berdzeni (Georgian: ბერძენი) was a name for people who lived in those states. Later the name saberdzneti came to mean simply "Greece" and berdzeni "the Greek". Saberdzneti literally means "Land of the Berdzens" (i.e. "Land of the Greeks.)
Etymology
The ethnonym berdzeni is presumed to be related to Pelasgians (Πελασγός), it being derived from the phonetical variant pel of the root ber. The dz of ber-dz-eni must be a variant of the Pel-as-goi, as s/z may in all likelihood have changed to dz in Georgian. This is also indicated by the existence of the stem bersen alongside berdzen in Georgian surnames like "Bersenadze".
There is also another theory that berdzeni was actually coined from the Georgian word "wise" brdzeni (Georgian: ბრძენი), thus saberdzneti would literally mean "land where the wise men live", possibly referring to the Ancient Greek philosophy. The same root is also adopted in Abkhazian and Greece is referred as barzentyla (Барзентәыла).