Ossetic or Ossetian is an Iranian language spoken on the slopes of the Caucasus mountains on the borders of Russia and Georgia.
The area in Russia is known as North Ossetia-Alania (capital: Vladikavkaz), while the area in Georgia is called South Ossetia (capital: Tskhinvali). Ossetian speakers number about 500,000, 60 percent of whom live in Alania, and 15 percent in South Ossetia.
Ossetian, together with Tati-Persian and Talyshi is one of the main Iranian languages with a sizeable community of speakers in the Caucasus. It is descended from the language of the Alans, a group within the nomadic Sarmatians. It is believed to be the only surviving descendent of a Sarmatian language.
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 æ, a letter to be found in no other language using the Cyrillic alphabet. A third dialect of Ossetic, Jassic, was formerly spoken in Hungary.
The literary form of the language has 35 phonemes -- 26 consonants, 7 vowels and 2 diphthongs.
Cyrillic Alphabet (since 1937):
Roman Alphabet (1923-1937): A/a, Æ/æ, B/b, C/c, Č/č, D/d, E/e, F/f, G/g, H/h, I/i, J/j, K/k, L/l, M/m, N/n, O/o, P/p, Q/q, R/r, S/s, Š/š, T/t, U/u,
V/v, X/x, Y/y, Z/z, Ž/ž
