Ossetian (Ирон æвзаг, Iron ævzag or Иронау, Ironau), also sometimes called Ossete, is an East Iranian language spoken in Ossetia, a region on the slopes of the Caucasus Mountains.
The area in Russia is known as North Ossetia-Alania, while the area south of the border is referred to as South Ossetia, recognized by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru as an independent state but by the rest of the international community as part of Georgia. Ossetian speakers number about 525,000, sixty percent of whom live in North Ossetia-Alania, and ten percent in South Ossetia.
History and classification
Ossetian is the spoken and literary language of the
Ossetes, a people living in the central part of the Caucasus and constituting the basic population of the republic of
North Ossetia-Alania, which belongs to the
Russian Federation, and of the
South Ossetia, which is
de facto independent (belongs to the
Georgian Republic according to most other states). Ossetian belongs to the Northern subgroup of the
Eastern-Iranian group of the
Indo-European family of languages. Thus, it is genetically related to the other Eastern-Iranian languages, e.g.
Pashto and
Yaghnobi.
From deep Antiquity (since the 7th-8th centuries B.C.), the languages of the Iranian group were distributed in a vast territory including present-day Iran (Persia), Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Ossetian is the sole survivor of the northeastern branch of Iranian languages known as Scythian. The Scythian group included numerous tribes, known in ancient sources as the Scythians, Massagetae, Saka, Sarmatians, Alans and Roxolans. The more easterly Khorezmians and the Sogdians were also closely affiliated, in linguistic terms.
Ossetian, together with Kurdish, Tati and Talyshi, is one of the main Iranian languages with a sizable community of speakers in the Caucasus. It is descended from Alanic, the language of the Alans, 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 is the Yaghnobi language of Tajikistan, the only other living member of the Northeastern Iranian branch. 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 Central Asian steppe. The Greek-derived names of ancient Iranian tribes in fact reflect this pluralization, e.g. Saromatae (Σαρομάται) and Masagetae (Μασαγέται).
Evidence for Medieval Ossetian
The earliest known written sample of Ossetian is an
inscription which dates from the 10th to 12th centuries CE and was found near the River
Bolshoi Zelenchuk at
Arkhyz. The text is written in the
Greek alphabet, with special
digraphs.
This transliterates as:
This translates to English as "K., son of S., son of I., son of B., son of A.; [this is] their monument."
The only other extant record of Proto-Ossetic are the two lines of "Alanic" phrases appearing in the Theogony of John Tzetzes, a twelfth-century Byzantine poet and grammarian:
The italicized portions above are Ossetian. Going beyond a direct transliteration of the Greek text, scholars have attempted a phonological 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: "dæ ban xʷærz,mæ sfili, (æ)xsinjæ kurθi kændæ" and "du farnitz, kintzæ mæ sfili, kajci fæ wa sawgin?"; equivalents in modern Ossetian would be "Dæ bon xwarz, me’fšini ‘xšinæ, kurdigæj dæ?" and "(De’) f(s)arm neč(ij), kinźi æfšini xæcc(æ) (ku) fæwwa sawgin". The passage translates as:
There are also recently found marginalia to Greek religious books with some parts (like headlines) of the book translated into Old Ossetic.
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 is also affected by the "openness" of the vowel. The trend is also found in a Jassic glossary dating from 1422.
Dialects
There are two important dialects:
Iron and
Digor—the former being the more widely spoken. Written Ossetian may be immediately recognized by its use of the
ӕ, a letter to be found in no other language using the
Cyrillic alphabet. A third dialect of Ossetian,
Jassic, was formerly spoken in
Hungary. The overwhelming majority of Ossetes speak the Iron dialect, and the literary language is based on it. The creator of the Ossetian literary language is the national poet
Kosta Xetagurov (1859–1906).
! colspan="2"|
Uvular Ossetian preserves many archaic features of Old Iranian, such as eight cases and verbal prefixes. It is debated what part of these cases are actually inherited from Indo-Iranian case morphemes and what part have re-developed, after the loss of the original case forms, through
cliticiziation 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.
Nouns and adjectives share the same morphology and distinguish two numbers (singular and plural) and nine cases: nominative, genitive, dative, directive, ablative, inessive, adessive, equative, and comitative. Unusually for an Indo-European language, the nominal morphology is agglutinative: the case suffixes and the number suffix are separate, the case suffixes are the same for both numbers and the number suffix is the same for all cases. Definiteness is also expressed. There is no grammatical gender.). The "one nation - two alphabets" issue caused an uprising in South Ossetia in the year 1951 demanding reunification of the script.
The modern Cyrillic alphabet, used since 1937, with values for the Iron dialect in the IPA. Letters in parentheses are not officially in the alphabet but are listed here to represent distinctive sounds:
In addition, the letters ‹ё›, ‹ж›, ‹ш›, ‹щ›, ‹ъ›, ‹ь›, ‹э›, ‹ю›, and ‹я› are used to transcribe Russian loans.
In addition, the letters ‹š› and ‹ž› were used to transcribe Russian words. The "weak" vowels ‹æ› and ‹ы› are extremely common in the language.
Language usage
". Sjögren's Cyrillic alphabet. 1923]]
The first printed book in Ossetian appeared in 1798. The first newspaper,
Iron Gazet, appeared on July 23, 1906 in
Vladikavkaz. The first complete translation of the Bible appeared in 2010 in Vladikavkaz, the
New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures in modern-day Ossetian.
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 (Рæстдзинад, "Truth") in the North and Xurzærin (Хурзæрин, "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. The Watchtower magazine, published by Jehovah's Witnesses, is available in a quarterly edition and a monthly study edition; as well as a web site in Ossetian from the same publishers.
Ossetian is taught in secondary schools for all pupils. Native Ossetian speakers also take courses in Ossetian literature.
Cognates
The following table illustrates some common words and gives cognates in other Indo-European languages.
{|border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="wikitable"
!Meaning !! fire !! month!! new !! mother !! sister !! night !! nose !! three !! red !! yellow !! green !! wolf
|-
! colspan="13" style="text-align:center; background:#dedede"| Translations into different languages
|-
| Ossetian || арт art || мæй mæj || нæуæг næwæg || мад mad || хо xo || æхсæв æxsæv || фындз fyndz || æртæ ærtæ || сырх syrx || бур bur || цъæх ts'æx || бирæгъ biræh
|-
| Sanskrit || agni/atar || māsa || nava || matar || svasā || rātri || nāsa || traya || rudhira || peeta || || vrkis
|-
| Pashto || اور or || مياشت mjāšt || نوى nəwai || مور mōr || خور xōr || شپه špa || پوزه pōza || درې drē || سور sur || ژړ žəṛ || شين šin || لېوه lewə
|-
| Persian || آتش ātaš || ماه māh || نو now || مادر mādar || خواهر xāhar || شب šab || بینی bini || سه se || سرخ sorx || زرد zard || سبز sabz || گرگ gorg
|-
| Hindi || āg || mahīna || nayā || mā || behn || rāt || nāk || tīn || lāl || pīlā || harā || bheyrryā
|-
| English || fire || month || new || mother || sister || night || nose || three || red || yellow || green || wolf
|-
| German || Feuer || Monat || neu || Mutter || Schwester || Nacht || Nase || drei || rot || gelb || grün || Wolf
|-
| Latin || ignis || mēnsis || novus || māter || soror || nox || nasus || trēs || ruber || flāvus, gilvus || viridis || lupus
|-
| French || feu || mois || nouveau || mère || sœur || nuit || nez || trois || rouge || jaune || vert || loup
|-
| Italian || fuoco || mese || nuovo || madre || sorella || notte || naso || tre || rosso || giallo || verde || lupo
|-
| Spanish || fuego || mes || nuevo || madre || hermana || noche || nariz || tres || rojo || amarillo || verde || lobo
|-
| Catalan || foc || mes || nou || mare || germana || nit || nas || tres || roig / vermell || groc || verd || llop
|-
| Romanian || foc || luna || nou || mamă || soră || noapte || nas || trei || roşu || galben || verde || lup
|-
| Greek || φωτιά fotiá ||μήνας minas || νέος neos || μητέρα mitera || αδελφή adhelfi || νύχτα nihta || μύτη miti || τρία tria || ερυθρός erithros || κίτρινος kitrinos || πράσσινος prassinos || λύκος likos
|-
| Lithuanian || ugnis || mėnuo || naujas || motina || sesuo || naktis || nosis || trys || raudona || geltona || žalias || vilkas
|-
| Bulgarian || огън ogən || месец mesets || нов nov || майка maika || сестра sestra || нощ nosht || нос nos || три tri || червен cherven || жълт zhălt || зелен zelen || вълк vălk
|-
| Russian || огонь ogón’ || месяц miesyats || новый novyi || мать mat' || сестра siestra || ночь noch' || нос nos || три tri || красный, рыжий krasnyi, ryzhyi || жёлтый zholtyi || зелёный zielionyi || волк volk
|}
See also
Alans
North Ossetia-Alania
Notes
Bibliography
Abaev, V.I. A grammatical sketch of Ossetic (Russian version)
Abaev, V.I. Ossetian Language and Folklore, USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow-Leningrad, 1949
Arys-Djanaieva, Lora. Parlons Ossète. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2004, ISBN 2-7475-6235-2.
Nasidze et al., Genetic Evidence Concerning the Origins of South and North Ossetians. Annals of Human Genetics 68 (6), 588-599(2004)
External links
Genetic Evidence Concerning the Origins of South and North Ossetians
Ossetic language page at the
Minority languages of Russia on the Net project
History of the Ossetian writing system and a comprehensive table of characters
Ossetic language materials in English and partly French
Laboratory of Field Linguistics: Ossetic (studies on Ossetic grammar, modern spoken texts in Ossetic)
Ossetic section of the Rosetta Project
Omniglot - Ossetian (Ирон æвзаг / Дигорон æвзаг)
Ossetian Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh list appendix)
Category:Ossetic language
Category:Northeastern Iranian languages
Category:Languages of Russia
Category:Languages of Georgia (country)
Category:Ossetia
Category:Sarmatians
