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Ossetian ( , , ), AHD:Ossetian commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete, is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken predominantly in Ossetia, a region situated on both sides of the Russian-Georgian border in the Greater Caucasus region. It is the native language of the Ossetians, and a relative and possibly a descendant of the extinct Scythian, Sarmatians, and Alanic language languages.
The northern half of the Ossetian region is part of Russia and is known as North Ossetia–Alania, while the southern half is part of the de facto country of South Ossetia (recognized by the United Nations as Russian-occupied territory that is de jure part of Georgia). Ossetian-speakers number about 614,350, with 451,000 recorded in Russia per the 2010 Russian census.
Despite Ossetian being the official languages of both North and South Ossetia, since 2009 UNESCO has listed Ossetian as "vulnerable". In the 2010 Russian census only 36% of North Ossetians claimed to be fluent in Ossetian, with the number decreasing year by year.
From the 7th–8th centuries BCE, the languages of the Iranian group were distributed across a vast territory spanning present-day Iran (Persia), Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus. Ossetian is the sole survivor of the branch of Iranian languages known as Scythian. The Scythian group included numerous tribes, known in ancient sources as the Scythians, the Massagetae, the Saka, the Sarmatians, the Alans, and the Roxolani. The more easterly Khwarazm and were also closely affiliated in linguistic terms.
Ossetian, together with Kurdish, Tat, and Talysh language, is one of the main Iranian languages with a sizable community of speakers in the Caucasus. As it is descended from Alanic, spoken by the Alan medieval tribes emerging from the earlier Sarmatians, it is believed to be the only surviving descendant of a Sarmatian language. The closest genetically related language may be the Yaghnobi language of Tajikistan, the only other living Northeastern Iranian language.Abaev, V. I. A Grammatical Sketch of Ossetian. Translated by Stephen P. Hill and edited by Herbert H. Paper, 1964 [2]Thordarson, Fridrik. 1989. Ossetic. Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, ed. by Rudiger Schmitt, 456-479. Wiesbaden: Reichert. [3] Ossetian has a plural formed by the suffix - ta, a feature it shares with Yaghnobi, Sarmatian and the now-extinct Sogdian; this is taken as evidence of a formerly wide-ranging Iranian-language dialect continuum on the Eurasian Steppe. The names of ancient Iranian tribes (as transmitted through Ancient Greek) in fact reflect this pluralization, e.g. Saromatae () and Masagetae ().
The only other extant record of Proto-Ossetic are the two lines of "Alanic" phrases appearing in the Theogony of John Tzetzes, a 12th century Byzantine poet and philologist:
The portions in bold face above are Ossetian. Going beyond a direct transliteration of the Greek text, scholars have attempted a phonology reconstruction using the Greek as clues, thus, while τ (tau) would usually be given the value "t", it instead is "d", which is thought to be the way the early Ossetes would have pronounced it. The scholarly transliteration of the Alanic phrases is: "dӕ ban xʷӕrz, mӕ sfili, (ӕ)xsinjӕ kurθi kӕndӕ" and "du farnitz, kintzӕ mӕ sfili, kajci fӕ wa sawgin?"; equivalents in modern Ossetian would be "Dӕ bon xwarz, me'fšini 'xšinӕ, kurdigӕj dӕ?" and "(De') f(s)arm neč(ij), kinźi ӕfšini xӕcc(ӕ) (ku) fӕwwa sawgin". The passage translates as:
Marginalia of Greek religious books, with some parts (such as headlines) of the book translated into Old Ossetic, have recently been found.
It is theorized that during the Proto-Ossetic phase, Ossetian underwent a process of phonological change conditioned by a Rhythmusgesetz or "Rhythm-law" whereby nouns were divided into two classes, those heavily or lightly stressed. "Heavy-stem" nouns possessed a "heavy" long vowel or diphthong, and were stressed on the first-occurring syllable of this type; "light-stem" nouns were stressed on their final syllable. This is precisely the situation observed in the earliest (though admittedly scanty) records of Ossetian presented above. This situation also obtains in Modern Ossetian, although the emphasis in Digor dialect is also affected by the "openness" of the vowel. The trend is also found in a glossary of the Jassic dialect dating from 1422.
While Ossetian is the official language in both South and North Ossetia (along with Russian), its official use is limited to publishing new laws in Ossetian newspapers. There are two daily newspapers in Ossetian: Ræstdzinad (Рӕстдзинад / Рӕстꚉінад, "Truth") in the North and Xurzarin (Хурзӕрин, "The Sun") in the South. Some smaller newspapers, such as district newspapers, use Ossetian for some articles. There is a monthly magazine Max dug (Мах дуг, "Our era"), mostly devoted to contemporary Ossetian fiction and poetry.
Ossetian is taught in secondary schools for all pupils. Native Ossetian speakers also take courses in Ossetian literature.
The first modern translation of the Qur'an into Ossetian took place in 2007, initiated by an Ossetian, Robert Bolloev. The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Russian Bible Society have each created translations of the Bible into Ossetian.
| +Vowel correspondence ! Old Iranian ! Iron dialect ! Digor dialect | ||
| *a | ɐ, a | |
| *ā | a, ɐ, o | |
| *i | ɘ | i |
| *ī | ||
| *u | u | |
| *ū | ||
| *ai | i | e |
| *au | u | o |
| *ṛ | ɐr, ar | |
Voiceless consonants become voiced word-medially (this is reflected in the orthography as well). , , and were originally allophones of , , and when followed by , and ; this alternation is still retained to a large extent.
Unlike all of its neighbouring languages, Ossetian largely lacks the original distinction of postalveolar and from the respective alveolar sibilants and (due to the early merger of Old Iranian *s/ *š and *z/ *ž). However, the northern variants use postalveolars, while the southern variants use the alveolars. In exchange, and in the north correspond into and ( and after nasals or when geminated) in the south.
In the Iron dialect, definiteness is expressed in words with stress on second syllable by shifting the stress to the initial syllable. This reflects the fact that historically they received a syllable definite article (as they still do in the Digor dialect), and the addition of the syllable caused the stress to shift. The above patterns apply not just within the content word, rather to prosodic words, units that result from content words being joined into a single prosodic group with only one stress. Not only compound verbs, but also every noun phrase constitutes such a group containing only one stressed syllable, regardless of its length, for instance мӕ чи́ныг/mӕ čínyg /mɐˈt͡ʃinɘg/ 'my book', мӕгуы́р зӕронд лӕг/mægwýr zærond læg /mɐˈgwɘr zɐrond lɐg/ 'a poor old man'. Since an initial particle and a conjunction are also included in the prosodic group, the single stress of the group may fall on them, too: фӕлӕ́ уый/fælǽ wyj 'but he'.
An Old Ossetic Greek alphabet inscription of the 10th–12th centuries was found in Arkhyz, the oldest known attestation of the Ossetian language.
Written Ossetian may be immediately recognized by its use of the Cyrillic letter Ae (Ӕ ӕ), a letter to be found in no other language using Cyrillic script. The father of the modern Ossetian literary language is the national poet Kosta Khetagurov (1859–1906).
An Iron literary language was established in the 18th century, written using the Cyrillic script in Russia and the Georgian script in Georgia. The first Ossetian book was published in Cyrillic in 1798, and in 1844 the alphabet was revised by a Russian scientist of Finland-Swedish origin, Andreas Sjögren. In the early 1800s, Daniel Chonkadze produced a Russian-Ossetian dictionary and translated Ossetian folklore, paving the way to establishing the Ossetian literature.Rayfield, Donald (2000), : 2nd edition, p. 153. Routledge,
A new alphabet based on the Latin script was made official in the 1920s, but in 1937 a revised Cyrillic alphabet was introduced, with digraphs replacing most of the 1844 alphabet.
In 1820, I. Yalguzidze published a Georgian-script alphabetic primer, adding three letters to the Georgian alphabet. Correspondence table between the Georgian-based and the modern script with examples of use The Georgian orthography receded in the 19th century, but was made official with Georgian autonomy in 1937. The "one nation – two alphabets" issue caused discontent in South Ossetia in the year 1951 demanding reunification of the script, and in 1954 Georgian was replaced with the 1937 Cyrillic alphabet.
The table below shows the modern Cyrillic alphabet, used since 1937, with phonetic values for the Iron dialect in the IPA. Di- and tri-graphs in parentheses are not officially letters of the alphabet, but are listed here to represent phonemically distinctive sounds:
| +Modern Cyrillic alphabet ! rowspan="2" | Letter | Л |
| л | ||
| ы | ||
In addition, the letters , , , , , , , , and are used to transcribe loans. The Ossetian Wikipedia uses the Latin 'æ' instead of the Cyrillic 'ӕ'.
| +The Latin alphabet (used 1923–1938) ! rowspan="2" | Letter | (Ku) |
| (ku) | ||
| z | ||
In addition, the letters and were used to transcribe Russian words. The "weak" vowels and are among the most common vowels in the language.
/ref> Ossetian preserves many archaic features of Old Iranian, such as eight cases and verbal prefixes. It is debated how many of these cases are actually inherited from Indo-Iranian case morphemes and how many have re-developed, after the loss of the original case forms, through of adverbs or re-interpretations of derivational suffixes: the number of "inherited" cases according to different scholars ranges from as few as three (nominative, genitive and inessive) to as many as six (nominative, dative, ablative, directive, inessive). Some (the comitative, equative, and adessive) are secondary beyond any doubt.Т. Т. Камболов. 2006 Очерк истории осетинского языка. p. 330–339
Erschler reported in 2021 that he has been unable to replicate Abaev's observations of a distinction between definite and indefinite nouns in Iron.
Since inessive and genitive show the same forms in both numbers, it is sometimes debated whether Ossetian might possess eight case forms for each number instead of nine. If the addition of the case suffix would result in hiatus, the consonant й j is usually inserted between them: зӕрдӕ-й-ӕн zærdæ-j-æn 'heart (dative)'.
| +Pronoun stems ! colspan="2" | ! nominative ! oblique stem ! enclitic genitive |
The personal pronouns mostly take the same endings as the nouns. The 1st and 2nd person singular exhibit suppletion between the stem used in the nominative case and the stem used in the other (oblique) cases; the oblique stem without other endings is the genitive case form. The 1st and 2nd persons plural have only one stem each, functioning as both nominative and genitive. The third person pronoun coincides with the demonstrative 'that'. In addition, there are enclitic non-nominative forms of the pronouns of all three persons, which are somewhat deviant. Their genitive ends in -ӕ -ӕ; not only the inessive, but also the ablative coincides with the genitive; the allative ends in -м -m and the dative has the vowel -у- -y- before the ending (e.g. мын myn); and the comitative has the vowel -е- -e- (e.g. мемӕ memӕ). The 3rd singular stem has the doublet forms йV- jV- and ∅V- everywhere outside of the ablative and inessive, which appears as дзы dzy, and the comitative, which can only have йV- jV-.Abaev 1964, p. 22–26
Reflexive forms are constructed from the enclitic forms of the personal pronouns and the reflexive pronoun хӕдӕг xӕdӕg 'self' (with the oblique forms хиц- xic- in the dative and ablative, хиу- xiw- in the adessive and хи xi in the other cases).
There are two demonstratives – ай aj (stem а- a-, pl. адон adon) 'this' and (stem уы- wy-, pl. уыдон ) 'that'. The interrogative pronouns are чи či (oblique stem кӕ- kӕ-) 'who' and сы cy (oblique stem сӕ- cӕ-). Indefinite pronouns meaning any- and some- are formed from the interrogatives by means of the prefix ис- is- and the suffix -дӕр -dӕr, respectively. Negatives are formed similarly, but with the prefix ни- ni-; the totality prefix ('every-') is ал- al-, and ӕлы ӕly is used adjectivally. Other pronouns meaning 'all' are ӕгас ӕgas and ӕппӕт ӕppӕt. There are two pronouns meaning 'other': иннӕ innӕ for 'another of two, a definite other one' and ӕндӕр ӕndӕr for 'some other, an indefinite other one'.Abaev 1964, p. 26–31
There are also many related transitive-intransitive verb pairs, which also differ by means of a vowel alternation (commonly а a : ӕ ӕ, e.g. сафын 'lose' : сӕфын sӕfyn 'be lost', and у u : уы wy, e.g. хъусын 'hear' : хъуысын 'be heard') and sometimes by the addition of the consonant -с s (тавын 'to warm' : тафсын 'to be warm').Abaev 1964, p. 42–43.
The indicative present endings are as follows:
| + ! !singular !plural |
The future tense forms consist of the present stem, the element -дзы(н)- ~ -дзӕн- (originally a separate root meaning 'wish' according to Fredrik Thordarson) and endings which appear to derive from encliticised copula уын uyn 'be' (see above table) used as an auxiliary. Thus, the resulting composite endings are:Abaev 1964, p. 51.
The transitive endings, on the other hand, are:
The subjunctive mood has its own forms for each tense. The endings are as follows:
The imperative consists of the present stem and the following endings:Abaev 1964, p. 52–53.
| + ! !singular !plural |
A special future imperative form can be formed by the addition of the independent particle иу iw.
| + ! !'out' !'in' !'down' !'up' !neutral |
Iterativity or habituality may be expressed with the separate particle иу iw. To make a prefixed form receive imperfective meaning, the article цӕй cӕj is inserted: рацӕйцыди racӕjcydi 'he was going out'.Abaev 1964, p. 45–47
| + ! !past !present !future |
| -инаг - inag |
The past passive participle in -т t or -д d coincides with the past stem (фыссын 'write' – фыст fyst 'written'); it is often nominalised to a verbal noun. All the other participles, as well as the gerund, are formed from the present stem. The future participle in -инаг - inag may have either active or passive meaning: фыссинаг 'who will write / will be written'. Together with the copula used as an auxiliary, it forms a periphrastic immediate future tense. The dedicated active participles in -ӕг -ӕg and receive 'present' or 'past', or more accurately, imperfective or perfective meaning depending on the aspect of the stem: фыссӕг fyssӕg 'writing' – ныффыссӕг 'having written'. The participle-gerund form ending in -гӕ -gӕ (бадгӕ badgӕ '(while) sitting'), can be used adverbially, as a gerund, but also attributively like a participle with absolutive voice: кӕрдгӕ kӕrdgӕ may mean '(which has been) cut', судзгӕ sudzgӕ may mean '(which is) burning', etc. To receive an unambiguously adverbial, i.e. gerundial interpretation, it needs to be declined in the ablative case, as does an adjective: бадгӕйӕ badgӕjӕ '(while) sitting'.Abaev 1964, p. 47–50 There are also verbal nouns: one derived from the present stem with the suffix -ӕн -ӕn with the meaning 'fit to be X-ed' – e.g. зын ссарӕн zyn ssarӕn 'hard to find' – and one in -аг -ag denoting permanent quality – e.g. нуазаг nwazag 'drunkard'.Thordarson, p. 474
| + !rowspan=2 | number !colspan=3 | new (decimal) system !colspan=3 | old (vigesimal) system |
| 21 | 20 + 1 | 1 + 20 | |
| 30 | 3 × 10 | 10 + 20 | |
| 35 | 30 + 5 | 15 + 20 | |
| 40 | 4 × 10 | 2 × 20 | |
| 50 | 5 × 10 | 10 + 2 × 20 | |
| 60 | 6 × 10 | 3 × 20 | |
| 70 | 7 × 10 | 10 + 2 × 30 | |
| 80 | 8 × 10 | 4 × 20 | |
| 90 | 9 × 10 | 10 + 4 × 20 | |
| 100 | – | 5 × 20 | |
| 120 | 100 + 20 | 6 × 20 | |
| 140 | 100 + 40 | 7 × 20 | |
| 160 | 100 + 60 | 8 × 20 | |
| 180 | 100 + 80 | 9 × 20 | |
| 200 | 2 × 100 | 2 × 5 × 20 | |
| 10 × 20 | |||
| 220 | 2 × 100 + 20 | 2 × 5 × 20 + 20 | |
| 11 × 20 |
| + !Cyrillic textBeginning of the Nart sagas in Dzhanayev's 1946 collection !Cyrillic text (Sjögren alphabet 1844) !Romanisation !Translation | |||
| Нартӕн уӕд сӕ хистӕр Уӕрхӕг уыдис. | Нартӕн ўӕд сӕ хістӕр Ўӕрхӕг ўѵдіс. | Nartæn wæd sæ xistær Wærxæg wydis. | At that time, the most senior of the Narts was Warkhag. |
| Уӕрхӕгӕн райгуырдис дыууӕ лӕппуйы, фаззӕттӕ. | Ўӕрхӕгӕн рајгўѵрдіс дѵўўӕ лӕппујѵ, фаззӕттӕ. | Wærxægæn rajgwyrdis dywwæ læppujy, fazzættæ. | Two boys were born to Warkhag, twins. |
| Иу дзы райгуырдис фыццаг кӕркуасӕны, иннӕ та райгуырдис дыккаг кӕркуасӕны, Бонвӕрноны скастмӕ. | Іў ꚉѵ рајгўѵрдіс фѵццаг кӕркўасӕнѵ, іннӕ та рајгўѵрдіс дѵккаг кӕркўасӕнѵ, Бонвӕрнонѵ скастмӕ. | Iw dzy rajgwyrdis fyccag kærkwasæny, innæ ta rajgwyrdis dykkag kærkwasæny, Bonværnony skastmæ. | One of them was born at the first crowing of the rooster, and the other was born at the second crowing of the rooster, before the rising of Bonvarnon (the Morning Star). |
| Рухс хуры тынтӕ ныккастис Уӕрхӕгмӕ, базыдта, хъӕбул куыд адджын у, уый. | Рухс хурѵ тѵнтӕ нѵккастіс Ўӕрхӕгмӕ, базѵдта, ԛӕбул кўѵд адԫѵн у, ўѵј. | Ruxs xury tyntæ nykkastis Wærxægmæ, bazydta, qæbul kwyd addžyn u, wyj. | The bright rays of the sun glanced down at Warkhag – he knew how dear the child was to him. |
| Уӕрхӕг йӕ лӕппуты райгуырды боны фарнӕн скодта нӕртон куывд сырды фыдӕй. | Ўӕрхӕг јӕ лӕппутѵ рајгўѵрдѵ бонѵ фарнӕн скодта нӕртон кўѵвд сѵрдѵ фѵдӕј. | Wærxæg jæ læpputy rajgwyrdy bony farnæn skodta nærton kwyvd syrdy fydæj. | To (bring) good fortune for the day of his boys' birth, Warkhag made a Nartic feast of game meat. |
| Ӕрхуыдта уӕларвӕй Куырдалӕгоны, фурдӕй — Донбеттыры, Нартӕй та — Борӕйы ӕмӕ ӕндӕрты. | Ӕрхўѵдта ўӕларвӕј Кўѵрдалӕгонѵ, фурдӕј — Донбеттѵрѵ, Нартӕј та — Борӕјѵ ӕмӕ ӕндӕртѵ. | Ærxwydta wælarvæj Kwyrdalægony, furdæj — Donbettyry, Nartæj ta — Boræjy æmæ ændærty. | From the sky he invited Kurdalagon (the smith god), from the sea – Donbettyr (the sea god), and of the Narts – Bora and others. |
| Уӕрхӕджы уарзон лӕппутыл буц нӕмттӕ сӕвӕрдта уӕларв Куырдалӕгон: хистӕрыл — Æхсар, кӕстӕрыл — Æхсæртæг. | Ўӕрхӕԫѵ ўарзон лӕппутѵл буц нӕмттӕ сӕвӕрдта ўӕларв Кўѵрдалӕгон: хістӕрѵл — Æхсар, кӕстӕрѵл — Æхсæртæг. | Wærxædžy warzon læpputyl buc næmttæ sæværdta wælarv Kwyrdalægon: xistæryl — Æxsar, kæstæryl — Æxsærtæg. | Celestial Kurdalagon bestowed special names on Warkhag's beloved boys: on the elder one – Akhsar, and on the younger one – Akhsartag. |
| Номӕвӕрӕджы лӕварӕн Куырдалӕгон радта Уӕрхӕгӕн удӕвдз йӕ куырдадзы фӕтыгӕй, болат ӕндонӕй арӕзт. | Номӕвӕрӕԫѵ лӕварӕн Кўѵрдалӕгон радта Ўӕрхӕгӕн удӕвꚉ јӕ кўѵрдаꚉѵ фӕтѵгӕј, болат ӕндонӕј арӕзт. | Nomæværædžy lævaræn Kwyrdalægon radta Wærxægæn udævdz jæ kwyrdadzy fætygæj, bolat ændonæj aræzt. | As a godfather's ('name-giver's') present, Kurdalagon gave Warkhag a magic flute ( udævdz) made of fætyg, the bulat steel of his forge. |
| Удӕвдзы Нарт сӕвӕрдтой сӕ фынгыл, ӕмӕ сын кодта диссаджы зарӕг уадындз хъӕлӕсӕй: | Удӕвꚉѵ Нарт сӕвӕрдтој сӕ фѵнгѵл, ӕмӕ сѵн кодта діссаԫѵ зарӕг ўадѵнꚉ qӕлӕсӕј: | Udævdzy Nart sæværdtoj sæ fyngyl, æmæ syn kodta dissadžy zaræg wadyndz qælæsæj: | The Narts put the magic flute on their table, and it sang to them a marvellous song with the voice of a flute: |
| «Айс ӕй, аназ ӕй Хуыцауы хӕларӕй, Айс ӕй, аназ ӕй — ронджы нуазӕн!» | «Ајс ӕј, аназ ӕј Хўѵцаўѵ хӕларӕј, Ајс ӕј, аназ ӕј — ронԫѵ нўазӕн!» | «Ajs æj, anaz æj Xwycawy xælaræj, Ajs æj, anaz æj — rondžy nwazæn!» | 'Take it, drink it to Khutsaw's (the supreme deity's) health, take it, drink it – the cup of rong (magical drink)!' |
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