Ossetian is part of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European languages.
- More specifically, it belongs to the Eastern division of the Iranian sub-branch.
- Other Eastern Iranian languages include Pashto and Yaghnobi.
The first known sample of Medieval Ossetian was dated from the 10th to the 12th century.
- The Ossetian from this time period was written in the Greek script.
There are about 570,000 speakers of Ossetian.
- According to the 2010 census, 451,000 of these speakers live within the Russian Federation.
- Most of these speakers live in the republic of North Ossetia – Alania in southern Russia.
Ossetian uses Cyrillic script.
- Of all languages using Cyrillic script, Ossetian is the only language to use the letters ‘Ææ’.
- The first book in Ossetian was published in 1798, using Cyrillic script.
- An official Latin based script was established in the 1920s; it was used until 1938.
- In 1937, a revised Cyrillic script was introduced.
- During a period in the 1800s, the Georgian script was used to write Ossetian in the country of Georgia.
The first bible in the Ossetian language was released in 2010 by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania.
- It can be downloaded for free here.
- Currently, it is the only full bible in the Ossetian language.
References
Polyglot in Progress 