Ossetian language
| 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 |
| Cyrillic (Ossetian alphabet) | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |
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 |
Ossetian (/ɒˈsɛtiən/, /ɒˈsiːʃən/, /oʊˈsiːʃən/), commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete (ирон ӕвзаг, irōn ævzag), is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken mostly in Ossetia.
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 | Uvular | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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. 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.
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
- ↑ The expressions "Ossetic language" and "Ossetian language" are about equally common in books, 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, Random House, and American Heritage 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 and the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
References
- 1 2 AHD:Ossetian
- ↑ OED:Ossetian.
- ↑ "Google Ngram Viewer". Retrieved 2022-03-18.
- ↑ "Ossete". Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
- ↑ Random House Dictionary
- ↑ "Ossetic". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2019-01-08.
- ↑ Encyclopaedia Britannica
- ↑ Dalby 1998.
- 1 2 Despite the transcription used here, Abaev refers to /k/ and /ɡ/ as "postpalatal" rather than velar, and to /q/, /χ/ and /ʁ/ as velar rather than uvular.
- ↑ (2700 экз ed.). 1966.
{{cite book}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ↑ . Vol. 22. 1897.
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Sources
- Dalby, Andrew (1998). Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More Than 400 Languages. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-11568-1.
