The dialects of the Ossetian language

The dialectal division

The Ossetian language is divided into 2 main dialects: iron (which was the basis for the literary language) and Digor. The differences between them are significant. Speakers of different dialects usually do not understand each other, if you do not have enough experience in another dialect. Usually the carriers of the Digor dialect (speaking about 1/6) possess and iron, but not Vice versa. In Digor is spoken in the Western part of North Ossetia, on ironin other areas of North Ossetia and in South Ossetia. There is a mixed dialect of residents of mountain villages Ouallah coma.

Iron dialect
Iron dialect, with slight lexical borrowing from Digor, on the basis of the literary Ossetian language. Study is the main dialect. It broadcasts the North-Ossetian radio and television, goes daily Republican newspaper “Рæстдзинад”. The founder of the Ossetian literature is the poet Constantine Levanovich Khetagurov (the Oset. Хетæгкаты Costa).

In South Ossetia iron dialect is represented by three dialects — kodorskim (the primary in the number of carriers), Ksani and unstalked. The first (also called kudaro belong-Java, Java) characterized by regular crossings of consonants (in dz j etc.) and quality of vowels in the front row at all the major phonetic, morphological and lexical characteristics, merges with the iron and the Digor dialect is opposed. In the more southern dialects of Georgian borrowing, in the North in the same place borrowing — Russian roots (for example, “rose” in the North is called розæ, and in the South, wardy).

The Constitution of North Ossetia-Alania essentially recognizes two dialects of the Ossetian language the official languages of the Republic, article 15 States:
1. The official languages of the Republic of North Ossetia—Alania are Ossetian and Russian.
2. Ossetian (iron and Digor dialects) is the basis of national consciousness of the Ossetian people. The preservation and development of the Ossetian language are the most important tasks of public authorities of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania.

The differences between dialects
Iron and Digor dialects of the Ossetian language differ mainly in phonetics and vocabulary, less in morphology (in particular, the differences in the system of cases and a mismatched set of productive derivational suffixes).

Between the dialects there are a large number of lexical differences. Are words in both dialects are completely different, words in tune, but with the release of beyond the usual phonetic correspondences and words that differ in use.

Grammatical differences boil down to the lack of Digor in a joint case. The rest of the set of grammatical categories is the same, though in many respects different case and time parameters.

Digor in many words preserved an indicator of the nominative case -æ, lost in the iron dialect: CISG — кизгæ “girl”, Myst — мистæ “mouse”, mad — мадæ “mother”. In the Digor dialect has a number of suffixes that are not present in iron — for example, -gon (don “water”, dongon “near the water”).

Some examples of correspondences between iron and Digor dialects can watch on the page a manual on the reading of texts in Ossetia.

In the middle of the 19th century, a substantial group of the Ossetians-Muslims, together with representatives of other Caucasian peoples migrated to the Ottoman Empire. In conditions of isolation from the main range of the language of Ossetian language in Turkey has evolved and acquired a number of interesting features.

Based on the analysis of Zelenchukskaya in the inscriptions it can be assumed that the ancestors of Ossetians — Alans of the Caucasus — had written language already in the X century. Zelenchuk inscription is constant transmission of the same Ossetian sounds the same Greek signs that tells about the existence in this region known skills and traditions. Until the second half of the XVIII century, information about the Ossetian written language is not.

In 1798 was published the first printed book in Ossetian (catechism), typed Cyrillic alphabet. The creation of the written word occurred 20 years later on the other side of the Caucasus mountain range in Georgia has published several books on the Ossetian language, using the Georgian alphabet, khutsuri.

Modern Ossetian alphabet was created in 1844 by the Russian philologist of Finnish origin Andreas Shegrena. In 1923-38 was translated into Latin basis, from 1938 in North Ossetia — Russian graphics, in South Ossetia — the Georgian alphabet (1954 — Russkaya grafika). When switching to Russian schedule in 1938, the number of characters sereously alphabet was replaced by the digraphs (dz, j, x, etc.), characters absent in the Russian alphabet, leaving only the letter W. The letter W/W to be the infallible determinant of Ossetian texts of all Cyrillic alphabets it is only in Ossetian.

In modern Ossetian alphabet includes 43 letters, some of which (e, u, ü, I, etc.) are found only in borrowings from (or through) Russian language.

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