Ossetian language

Ossetian (/ɒˈsɛtiən/, /ɒˈsiːʃən/, /oʊˈsiːʃən/),^[1][2] commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete^{[note 1][8]} (ирон ӕвзаг, irōn ævzag), is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken mostly in Ossetia.

Ossetian
ирон ӕвзаг irōn ævzag дигорон ӕвзаг digōrōn ævzag
Latin-script Ossetian text from a book published in 1935; part of an alphabetic list of proverbs.
Pronunciation	[iˈɾon ɐvˈzaɡ] [digoˈɾon ɐvˈzaɡ]
Native to	Ossetia
Region	Caucasus
Ethnicity	Ossetians
Native speakers	597,450 (2010)e23
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Eastern Ossetian
Writing system	Cyrillic (Ossetian alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	Russia  North Ossetia–Alania  Georgia Provisional Administration of South Ossetia Partially recognised country:  South Ossetia
Language codes
ISO 639-1	os
ISO 639-2	oss
ISO 639-3	oss
Glottolog	osse1243
Linguasphere	58-ABB-a
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Dialects

There are two main dialects of Ossetian, Iron and Digoron.

Sounds

Vowels

Ossetian has either 6 or 7 vowels, depending on the dialect. The Iron dialect has one more than Digoron.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	и /i/		у /u/
Close-mid		ы /ɘ/
Mid	е /e/		о /o/
Near-open		ӕ /ɐ/
Open		а /a/

The Digor dialect of Ossetic has 6 vowels:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	и /i/		у /u/
Mid	е /e/		о /o/
Near-open		ӕ /ɐ/
Open		а /a/

Consonants

According to Vasily Abaev, an Ossetian researcher, there are 26 consonants in Ossetian.

		Labial	Dental/ alveolar		Postalveolar /palatal	Velar[9]		Uvular[9]
			plain	sibilant		plain	labialized	plain	labialized
Stops/ Affricates	voiced	б /b/	д /d/	дз /d͡z/	дж /d͡ʒ/	г /ɡ/	гу /ɡʷ/
	voiceless	п /pʰ/ ~ /p/	т /tʰ/ ~ /t/	ц /t͡s/	ч /t͡ʃ/	к /kʰ/ ~ /k/	ку /kʷʰ/ ~ /kʷ/	хъ /q/	хъу /qʷ/
	ejective	пъ /pʼ/	тъ /tʼ/	цъ /t͡sʼ/	чъ /t͡ʃʼ/	къ /kʼ/	къу /kʼʷ/
Fricatives	voiced	в /v/		з /z/ ~ /ʒ/				гъ /ʁ/	гъу /ʁʷ/
	voiceless	ф /f/		с /s/ ~ /ʃ/				х /χ/	ху /χʷ/
Nasals		м /m/	н /n/
Approximants			л /ɫ/ ~ /l/		й /j/		у /w/
Rhotic			р /r/

Alphabet

Ossetian has been written down since the 10th century, but not always since then. The first text in Ossetian was in the Greek alphabet and in the Digoron dialect.^[10] After this, Ossetian was not written down for some time. However, in 1753, Heraclius II of Georgia decided to make missionaries write down Ossetian, this time using the Georgian alphabet.^[11]

In more modern times, Ossetian uses the Cyrillic script. The current alphabet is in the table below.

А а	Ӕ ӕ	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Дж дж	Дз дз
Е е	Ё ё	Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й	К к	Къ къ
Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п	Пъ пъ	Р р	С с
Т т	Тъ тъ	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Хъ хъ	Ц ц	Цъ цъ
Ч ч	Чъ чъ	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ	Ы ы	Ь ь	Э э
Ю ю	Я я

Notes

1. The expressions "Ossetic language" and "Ossetian language" are about equally common in books,^[3] but dictionaries show that there are differences between British and North American usage. The Collins English Dictionary mentions only "Ossetic" for American usage and lists it first for British usage,^[source?] and the US dictionaries Merriam-Webster,^[4] Random House,^[5] and American Heritage^[1] do not even mention the language as a meaning of "Ossetian", whereas the Oxford University Press (as quoted in the Lexico.com entries for Ossetic and Ossete) clearly considers "Ossetian" more common than "Ossetic" for the language. So US dictionaries agree on "Ossetic" for the language, whereas UK dictionaries do not agree on whether it or "Ossetian" are more common. "Ossetic" is apparently preferred in scientific use (linguistics), as shown by this article's references, including the entries in Ethnologue^[6] and the Encyclopaedia Britannica.^[7]