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Alanic, also known as Alanian, was the language spoken by the Alans from about the 1st to the 13th centuries AD, comprised a dialect directly descended from the earlier Scytho-Sarmatian languages, which would in turn form the Ossetian language. Byzantine Greek authors recorded only a few fragments of this language.Ladislav Zgusta, "The old Ossetian Inscription from the River Zelenčuk" (Veröffentlichungen der Iranischen Kommission = Sitzungsberichte der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse 486) Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1987. Cited in The Alans who moved westward the Migration Period brought their language to Iberia and to the Maghreb in 409 AD before being displaced by the invading Visigoths and by the Byzantine Empire.
Unlike Pontic Scythian, Ossetian did not experience the evolution of the Proto-Scythian sound /d/ to /ð/ and then /l/, although the sound /d/ did evolve into /ð/ at the beginning of Ossetian words.
According to Magomet Isayev, the Zelenchuk inscription and other historical data give reason to assume that in the 10th-13th centuries, the Alans already had their own unique written language based on the Greek alphabet. However subsequent historical events resulted in this written tradition being lost. Guillaume de Rubruck, who met the Alans in the 13th century, mentioned that they had Greek writing.Guill. de Rubruc 11,1—3 (изд. Wyngaert 1929:191—192)
After the Mongols destroyed Alania in the northern Caucasus in 1240, some Alans retreated to the mountains of the Caucasus and mixed with the indigenous population, forming the modern-day Ossetians and developing the Ossetian language. (1999). 9785857591079, Indrik. ISBN 9785857591079
In 1927, the Hungarians Byzantinism I. Moravcsik discovered the full text of the epilogue to the Theogony in the 15th-century Barberinus manuscript in the Vatican City Library. He published the work in 1930, which contained greeting formulas written in the Greek alphabet for the various languages that the Byzantine Empire had come into contact with in the 12th century. These languages included "Scythian" (in fact, the Cuman language), "Persian language" (in fact, Oghuz languages), Latin, Arabic, Russian language, Hebrew language and Alanic. Thus, this is the only written monument of Alanic whose ethnolinguistic affiliation has been attested by the person who wrote it.
The translation from Greek language and Latin transliterations of greeting phrases in “barbarian” languages was published by S. M. Perevalov in 1998:
τοις Άλανοις προσφθέγγομαι κατά' την τούτων γλώσσαν
The language of these phrases is an archaic version of the Ossetian language . Thus, "Tapankhas" ("good day") corresponds to the Ironian "dæ bon xorz", the Digor "dæ bon xwarz" - "let your day be good". It is noteworthy that a similar phrase - "daban horz" - was found in the Jasz people glossary of 1422.
Both phrases can be compared in their entirety with modern Ossetian analogues:
The first Tapankhas corresponds to the modern Ossetian (Digor):
The second phrase - Farnetz corresponds to the Ossetian
There has also been a comparison of the word for horse in various Indo-Iranian languages and the reconstructed Alanic word for horse:
| + !Language !Affiliation !Horse | ||
| Alanian language | *asφa | |
| Lithuanian | Baltic | ašvà |
| Sanskrit | Indo-Aryan | áśva |
| Khotanese | Northeastern Iranian | a śśa |
| Pashto | East Iranian | ās |
| Ossetian | Northeastern Iranian | ӕfsӕ(D)/efs(I) |
| Wakhi language | Northeastern Iranian | yaš |
| Yaghnobi | Northeastern Iranian | asp |
| Avestan | Southeastern Iranian | aspa |
| Shughni language | Southeastern Iranian | vorǰ |
| Balochi language | Northwestern Iranian | asp |
| Kurdî | Northwestern Iranian | hesp |
| Median language | Northwestern Iranian | aspa |
| Old Persian | Southwestern Iranian | asa |
| Middle Persian | Southwestern Iranian | asp |
| Persian language | Southwestern Iranian | asb |
The inscription was read and published in 1893 by Academician Vsevolod Miller as follows:
Ις Χς
According to the modern researcher T. T. Kambolov, the inscription can be deciphered as follows:
"Jesus Christ, Saint Nicholas, Sakhir son of Khors, Khors son of Bagatar, Bagatar son of Anbalan, Anbalan son of Lag - their graves."
It is assumed that the slab was installed on the site of a collective burial and that names were added as new graves appeared, which can be noticed from the some symbols being drawn differently.
In 1892, the inscription was rediscovered by G. I. Kulikovsky, which he made a new imprint of. This was the last time the monument was seen as expeditions in 1946 and 1964 failed to find the gravestone.
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