Ossetian language

Ossetian (English: /ɒˈsɛtiən/, /ɒˈsʃən/, /ˈsʃən/),[3][4] more commonly called Ossetic and rarely Ossete[note 1][11] (Ossetian: ирон ӕвзаг, romanized: iron avzâg), is an Eastern Iranian language spoken in Ossetia, a region on the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains. It is a relative and possibly a descendant of the extinct Scythian, Sarmatian, and Alanic languages.[12]

Ossetian
ирон ӕвзаг (iron ævzag)
дигорон ӕвзаг (digoron ævzag)
Pronunciation[iˈɾon ɐvˈzaɡ]
[digoˈɾon ɐvˈzaɡ]
Native toNorth Caucasus (North Ossetia-Alania), South Ossetia (partially recognized)
EthnicityOssetians
Native speakers
597,450 (2010)[1]
Early forms
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
 Russia

 Georgia

 South Ossetia
Language codes
ISO 639-1os
ISO 639-2oss
ISO 639-3oss
Glottologosse1243
Linguasphere58-ABB-a
Ossetian text from a book published in 1935. Part of an alphabetic list of proverbs. Latin script.
Ethnolinguistic groups in the Caucasus region. Ossetian-speaking regions are shaded gold.

The Ossete area in Russia is known as North Ossetia–Alania, while the area south of the border is referred to as South Ossetia. Ossetian speakers number about 614,350, with 451,000 speakers in the Russian Federation recorded in the 2010 census.[9]

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 South Ossetia, which is de facto occupied by Russia (but is de jure part of the Georgian Republic according to most other states). Ossetian belongs to the Iranian group of the Indo-European family of languages (as hinted by its endonym, ирон). Within Iranian it is placed in an Eastern subgroup and further to a Northeastern sub-subgroup, but these are areal rather than genetic groups. The other Eastern Iranian languages such as Pashto and Yaghnobi show certain commonalities but also deep-reaching divergences from Ossetic.

From deep Antiquity (since the 7th–8th centuries BC), 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 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 may be the Yaghnobi language of Tajikistan, the only other living Northeastern Iranian language.[13][14] 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 names of ancient Iranian tribes (as transmitted through Ancient Greek) in fact reflect this pluralization, e.g. Saromatae (Σαρομάται) and Masagetae (Μασαγέται).[15]:69

Evidence for Medieval Ossetian

The earliest known written sample of Ossetian is an inscription which dates from the 10th to 12th centuries and was found near the River Bolshoi Zelenchuk at Arkhyz. The text is written in the Greek alphabet, with special digraphs.

InscriptionTransliterationTranslation
ΣΑΧΗΡΗ ΦΟΥΡΤ ΧΟΒΣ
ΗΣΤΟΡΗ ΦΟΥΡΤ ΠΑΚΑΘΑΡ
ΠΑΚΑΘΑΡΗ ΦΟΥΡΤ ΑΝΠΑΛΑΝ
ΑΝΠΑΛΑΝΗ ΦΟΥΡΤ ΛΑΚ
ΑΝΗ ΤΖΗΡΘΕ
Saxiri Furt Xovs
Istori Furt Bӕqӕtar
Bӕqӕtari Furt Æmbalan
Æmbalani Furt Lak
Ani čirtī
"K., son of S., son of I., son of B., son of A.; [this is] their monument."[15]:55–56 The original, following Zgusta, translates only initials; presumably this is because although the uninflected forms may be inferred, no written records of them have been found to date.

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 grammarian:

Τοῖς ἀλανοῖς προσφθέγγομαι κατά τήν τούτων γλῶσσαν
Καλή ημέρα σου αὐθεντα μου αρχόντισσα πόθεν εἶσαι
Ταπαγχὰς μέσφιλι χσινὰ κορθὶ κάντα καὶ τ’άλλα
ἂν ὃ ἒχη ἀλάνισσα παπὰν φίλον ἀκούσαις ταῦτα
οὐκ αἰσχύνεσσι αὐθέντρια μου νὰ μου γαμὴ τὸ μουνί σου παπᾶς
τὸ φάρνετζ κίντζι μέσφιλι καίτζ φουὰ σαοῦγγε
[15]:54[16]

The portions in bold face 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: "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".[17] The passage translates as:

The Alans I greet in their language:
"Good day to you my lord's lady, where are you from?"
"Good day to you my lord's lady, where are you from?" and other things:
When an Alan woman takes a priest as a lover, you might hear this:
"Aren't you ashamed, my lordly lady, that your cunt is being fucked by a priest?" [sic]
"Aren't you ashamed, my lady, to have a love affair with the priest?"[16][17]

Marginalia of Greek religious books, with some parts (such as headlines) of the book translated into Old Ossetic, have been recently found.[18]

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.[15]:47 This situation also obtains in Modern Ossetian, although the emphasis in Digor is also affected by the "openness" of the vowel.[19] The trend is also found in a glossary of the Jassic dialect dating from 1422.[20]

Dialects

There are two important dialects: Digor (distributed in the west of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania and Kabardino-Balkaria) and Iron (in the rest of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania and in South Ossetia and Karachay-Cherkessia),[12] spoken by one-sixth and five-sixths of the population, respectively. A third dialect of Ossetian, Jassic, was formerly spoken in Hungary.

Phonology

The Iron dialect of Ossetic has 7 vowels:

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

The Ossetian researcher V. I. Abayev distinguishes 26 consonants, to which five labialized consonants and two semivowels may be added. Unusually for an Indo-European language, there is a series of glottalized (ejective) stops and affricates. This can be considered an areal feature of languages of the Caucasus.

Labial Dental/
alveolar
Postalveolar
/palatal
Velar[21] Uvular[21]
plain labialized plain labialized
Stops voiced б /b/д /d/г /ɡ/гу /ɡʷ/
voiceless п /pʰ/~/p/т /tʰ/~/t/к /kʰ/~/k/ку /kʷʰ/~/kʷ/хъ /q/хъу /qʷ/
ejective пъ /pʼ/тъ /tʼ/къ /kʼ/къу /kʼʷ/
Affricates voiced дз /z/~/d͡z/дж /d͡ʒ/
voiceless ц /s/~/t͡s/ч /t͡ʃ/
ejective цъ /t͡sʼ/чъ /t͡ʃʼ/
Fricatives voiced в /v/з /ʒ/~/z/гъ /ʁ/
voiceless ф /f/с /ʃ/~/s/х /χ/ху /χʷ/
Nasals м /m/н /n/
Lateral л /ɫ/~/l/
Rhotic р /r/
Approximants й /j/у /w/

Voiceless consonants become voiced word-medially (this is reflected in the orthography as well). /t͡ʃ/, /d͡ʒ/, and /t͡ʃʼ/ were originally allophones of /k/, /ɡ/, and /kʼ/ when followed by /e/, /i/ and /ɘ/; this alternation is still retained to a large extent.

Stress normally falls on the first syllable, unless it has a "weak" vowel (/ɘ/ or /ɐ/), in which case it falls on the second syllable. In the Iron dialect, definiteness is expressed in post-initially stressed words by shifting the stress to the initial syllable. This reflects the fact that historically they received a syllabic definite article (as they still do in the Digor dialect), and the addition of the syllable caused the stress to shift.[13]

Grammar

According to V.I. Abaev,[13]

In the course of centuries-long propinquity to and intercourse with Caucasian languages, Ossetian became similar to them in some features, particularly in phonetics and lexicon. However, it retained its grammatical structure and basic lexical stock; its relationship with the Iranian family, despite considerable individual traits, does not arouse any doubt.

Nouns

Ossetic has lost the grammatical category of gender which many Indo-European languages have preserved until today.[13] According to the Encyclopӕdia Britannica 2006[22] 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 cliticization 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.[23]

Definiteness

Definiteness is, according to Abaev, only expressed by shift of word accent from the second to the first syllable (which is not possible in all nouns):

  • farát "an axe"
  • fárat "the axe"

Cases

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. 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 (illustrated here with the noun сӕр šar "head"):[13]

Singular singular romanization Plural plural romanization
Nominative сӕр šar сӕртӕ šarta
Genitive сӕры šare сӕрты šarte
Dative сӕрӕн šaran сӕртӕн šartan
Allative сӕрмӕ šarma сӕртӕм šartam
Ablative сӕрӕй šaray сӕртӕй šartay
Inessive сӕры šare сӕрты šarte
Adessive сӕрыл šarel сӕртыл šartel
Equative сӕрау šarâw сӕртау šartâw
Comitative сӕримӕ šarima сӕртимӕ šartima

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.

Verbs

Verbs distinguish six persons (1st, 2nd and 3rd, singular and plural), three tenses (present, past and future, all expressed synthetically), and three moods (indicative, subjunctive, imperative). The person, tense and mood morphemes are mostly fused. Passive voice is expressed periphrastically with the past passive participle and an auxiliary verb meaning "to go"; causative and reflexive meaning are also expressed by periphrastic constructions. Verbs may belong to one of two lexical aspects (perfective vs. imperfective); these are expressed by prefixes, which often have prepositional origin. There is an infinitive (morphologically coinciding with the 1st person singular, but syntactically forming a nominal phrase), four participles (present and past active, past passive, and future), and a gerund. Vowel and consonant alternations occur between the present and past stems of the verb and between intransitive and transitive forms. Intransitive and transitive verbs also differ in the endings they take in the past tense (in intransitive verbs, the construction is, in origin, a periphrastic combination of the past passive participle and the verb "to be").[13] There are also special verb forms, such as immediate future tense that is transmitted by adding -inag to the verb and the auxiliary verb meaning "to be". Future Imperative is another special form that is transmitted through usage of independent particle iu. Yet another special verbal form that is used to reflect either an interrupted process or a process that has nearly been completed. This form is made up through the use of a particle sӕi that is stuck between the prefix, usually fӕ- and the verb.

Ossetic uses mostly postpositions (derived from nouns), although two prepositions exist in the language. Noun modifiers precede nouns. The word order is not rigid, but tends towards SOV. The morphosyntactic alignment is nominative–accusative, although there is no accusative case: rather, the direct object is in the nominative (typically if inanimate or indefinite) or in the genitive (typically if animate or definite).[13]

For numerals above 20, two systems are in use – a decimal one used officially, and a vigesimal one used colloquially.[13]

Writing system

Ossetic text written with Georgian script, from a book on Ossetian folklore published in 1940 in South Ossetia

Written Ossetian may be immediately recognized by its use of the Cyrillic letter Ae 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).[13]

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 Finnish-Swedish origin, Andreas Sjögren. 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 diacritics of the 1844 alphabet.

In 1820, I. Yalguzidze published a Georgian-script alphabetic primer, adding three letters to the Georgian alphabet.[24] 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
Letter АӔБВГ(Гу)Гъ(Гъу)ДДжДзЕЗИЙК(Ку)Къ(Къу)Л
аӕбвг(гу)гъ(гъу)ддждзезийк(ку)къ(къу)л
IPA äɐbvɡɡʷʁʁʷdd͡ʒz~d͡zeʒ~zijkkʼʷɫ
Letter МНОППъРСТТъУФХ(Ху)Хъ(Хъу)ЦЦъЧЧъЫ
мноппърсттъуфх(ху)хъ(хъу)ццъччъы
IPA mnoprʃ~stu, wfχχʷqs~t͡st͡sʼt͡ʃt͡ʃʼɘ

In addition, the letters ё, ж, ш, щ, ъ, ь, э, ю, and я are used to transcribe Russian loans.

The Latin alphabet (used 1923–1938)
Letter AÆBCChČČhDDzEFGGuHHuIJKKu
aӕbcchččhddzefgguhhuijkku
IPA äɐbs~t͡st͡sʼt͡ʃt͡ʃʼdz~d͡zd͡ʒefɡɡʷʁʁʷijk
Letter KhKhuLMNOPPhQQuRSTThUVXXuYZ
khkhulmnopphqqurstthuvxxuyz
IPA kʷʼɫmnopqrʃ~stu, wvχχʷɘʒ~z

In addition, the letters š and ž were used to transcribe Russian words. The "weak" vowels ӕ [ɐ] and ы [ɘ] are extremely common in the language.

Language usage

The first page of the first issue of the Ossetian newspaper Rastdzinâd. Sjögren's Cyrillic alphabet. 1923

The first printed book in Ossetian appeared in 1798. The first newspaper, Iron Gâžêt, appeared on July 23, 1906 in Vladikavkaz.

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: Raštdzinâd (Рӕстдзинад / Рӕстꚉінад, "Truth") in the North and Xuržarin (Хурзӕрин, "The Sun") in the South. Some smaller newspapers, such as district newspapers, use Ossetian for some articles. There is a monthly magazine Mâx 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 Ossetian language Bible was published in 2010.[9] It is currently the only full version of the Bible in the Ossetian language.[25]

Vocabulary

The following table illustrates some common Ossetic words with cognates or translations in other Indo-Iranian and other Indo-European languages.

Translations into different languages
English firemonthnewmothersisternightnosethreeredyellowgreenwolf
Ossetian арт
art
мӕй
mæĭ
нӕуӕг
næwæg
мад
mad
хо
xo
ӕхсӕв
æxsæv
фындз
fındz
ӕртӕ
ærtæ
сырх
sırx
бур
bur
цъӕх
c'æx
бирӕгъ
biræg'
Pashto اور
ōr
مياشت
myāšt
نوی
nəway
مور
mōr
خور
xōr
شپه
špah
پوزه
pōzah
درې
drē
سور
sur
زيړ
zyaṛ
شين
šin
لېوه
lēwə
Tat ataşmanügmay/dədəxuvarşöüvinisürx/qirmizizərdsouzgürg
Kurdish agir / armeh/heyvnumak/dayikxwişkşevpozsorzerd/borkesk/şîngur / wir
Mazanderani tashmungnoumārkhakhershufeniseserkhzardsuzwerg
Persian آتش
ātaš
ماه
māh
نو
now
مادر
mādar
خواهر
xāhar
شب
šab
بینی / پوزه
pozeh / bini
سه
seh
سرخ
sorx
بور/ زرد
zard / bur
سبز
sabz
گرگ
gorg
Sanskrit अग्नि॔ः
agníḥ
मा॔स/मा॔सः
mā́s/mā́saḥ
न॔वः/न॔व्यः
návaḥ/návyaḥ
मा॔ता
mā́tā
स्व॔सा
svásā
न॔क/न॔क्तिः
nák/náktiḥ
न॔स/ना॔सा
nás/nā́sā
त्र॔यः
tráyaḥ
रुधिर॔ः
rudhiráḥ
पि॔त
pít
ह॔रिः
háriḥ
वृ॔कः
vṛ́kaḥ
Kamkata-vari āŋomosnuĩnuasusřotrnāsuřtrepuṭādraādraṣiol
German FeuerMonatneuMutterSchwesterNachtNasedreirotgelbgrünWolf
Latin ignismēnsisnovusmātersorornoxnasustrēsruberflāvus, gilvusviridislupus
Modern Greek φωτιά
fôtiá
μήνας
mếnas
νέος
néos
μητέρα
mêtéra
αδελφή
adelfế
νύχτα
nýhta
μύτη
mýtê
τρία
tría
κοκκινός
kokkinós
κίτρινος
kítrinos
πράσσινος
prássinos
λύκος
lýkos
Armenian հուր
hur
ամիս
amis
նոր
nor
մայր
mayr
քույր
k'uyr
գիշեր
gišer
քիթ
k'it'
երեք
yerek'
կարմիր
karmir
դեղին
değin
կանաչ
kanač
գայլ
gayl
Lithuanian ugnismėnuonaujasmotinasesuonaktisnosistrysraudonasgeltonasžaliasvilkas
Russian огонь
ogon'
месяц
mesâc
новый
novıĭ
мать
mat'
сестра
sestra
ночь
noč'
нос
nos
три
tri
красный
krasnıĭ
жёлтый
žëltıĭ
зелёный
zelënıĭ
волк
volk
Irish tinenuamáthairdeirfiúroíchesróntrídearg/ruabuíglasfaolchú

See also

Notes

  1. The expressions "Ossetic language" and "Ossetian language" are about equally common in books,[5] 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,[6] and the US dictionaries Merriam-Webster,[7] Random House,[8] and American Heritage[3] don't 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 don't 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[9] and the Encyclopaedia Britannica.[10]

References

  1. Ossetian at Ethnologue (23nd ed., 2020)
  2. Windfuhr 2013.
  3. AHD:Ossetian
  4. OED:Ossetian.
  5. Ngram Viewer
  6. Collins English Dictionary
  7. Merriam-Webster.com
  8. Random House Dictionary
  9. "Ossetic". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2019-01-08.
  10. Encyclopaedia Britannica
  11. Dalby 1998.
  12. Lubotsky, Alexander (2010). Van Sanskriet tot Spijkerschrift Breinbrekers uit alle talen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. p. 34. ISBN 9089641793.
  13. Abaev, V. I. A Grammatical Sketch of Ossetian. Translated by Stephen P. Hill and edited by Herbert H. Paper, 1964
  14. Thordarson, Fridrik. 1989. Ossetic. Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, ed. by Rudiger Schmitt, 456-479. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
  15. Kim, Ronald (2003). "On the Historical Phonology of Ossetic: The Origin of the Oblique Case Suffix". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 123 (1): 43–72. doi:10.2307/3217844.
  16. Zgusta 1987.
  17. Kambolov, Tamerlan (10 May 2007). Some New Observations on the Zelenchuk Inscription and Tzetzes’ Alanic Phrases (PDF). Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans – Iranian-Speaking Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes. Barcelona. pp. 21–22. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  18. Ivanov 2010.
  19. Zgusta 1987, p. 51.
  20. Zgusta 1987, p. 55.
  21. 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.
  22. Ossetic language. (2006). In Encyclopӕdia Britannica. Retrieved August 26, 2006, from Encyclopӕdia Britannica Premium Service: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ossetic-language
  23. Т.Т. Камболов. 2006 Очерк истории осетинского языка. p.330-339
  24. Correspondence table between the Georgian based and the modern script with examples of use (in Russian)
  25. "Russian Censorship: Ossetian & Russian Bibles, Bible Literature". JW.ORG. Retrieved 2017-01-08.

Bibliography

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