Talk:Ossetian language/Archive 2

avžag or ævzag?
The romanization at the top of the right-hand table shows avžag for æвзаг. If the Ossetian is correct, shouldn't the romanization be ævzag? But I don't know which is right.
 * It's a really difficult issue, evoking discussions among the Ossetians themselves (in forums etc.). The most used form (being also the official form in North Ossetia, one that sounds on radio and TV) is ævžag; though the South Ossetia's children are being taught in schools to read ævzag, as the older norm (neglected in the North) puts it. I do not even hope that this is understandable, it is not. :) — Slavik IVANOV 00:27, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Alphabet table (temporary)
Here's a table to replace the current alphabet lists in the article—I'm not sure about all the correct values, though...


 * Thank you for your attempt. This table is a good idea. I've added/changed some parts of it. - Slavik IVANOV 00:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Reference to Romanian
"As such, it can also be transscripted as ǎ, like in Latin or Romanian." The letter exists in Romanian, but it represents a schwa, not a short 'a' sound.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.245.224.3 (talk) 08:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Highly inflected
My 15th edition Encyclopædia Brittanica (1974 -- making it much more recent than the Abaiev work cited) claims that Ossetic is a highly inflected language, preserving all eight of the original Indo-European cases (Micropedia VII; Macropedia 9:450-454). By logging in from home to my university's library, I was able to access a recent article which appeared in the Journal of the American Oriental Society. I cannot link to it because users outside the IU system will not be able to access it through the link, although they should be able to find it through EBSCO or a comparable syste. I will reproduce a quote from the opening paragraph here:
 * The language belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family and is the sole surviving descendant of the Northeast Iranian dialects of the ancient Scythians and Sarmatians and medieval Alans, who dominated the Eurasian steppe between the Danube delta and Central Asia from the first millennium B.C. until the early Middle Ages. Despite having undergone numerous idiosyncratic developments--and influence from neighboring Caucasian and Turkic languages--Ossetic preserves many startling archaisms in its phonology and morphology, due in part to its isolation from the rest of the Iranian-speaking world for some thousand years.


 * Among the modern Iranian languages, Ossetic is distinguished by its complex system of nominal case inflection, exemplified by the following paradigms for bæx "horse" in the two major dialects, Digor (D) and Iron (I):(n2)
 * --(Ronald Kim, Journal of the American Oriental Society; Jan-Mar2003, Vol. 123 Issue 1, p43) Accessed July 31, 2006 through EBSCOhost.

I do not have any other sources on Ossetic available to me here in my study, but given that Brittanica, Ethnologue, and Mr. Kim in the Journal all hold that Ossetic is highly inflected make me question the Abaiev citation. It may very well be that Abaiev's is a minority or discredited opinion; if we end up including it here as a minority viewpoint, we should cite the English version along with the Russian. Abaiev's work was translated in 1964 and is available from Indiana University Press. --Jpbrenna 00:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The Abaev citation is false and misquoted. The Encyclopedia Britannica article is a good reference.  The users who vandalizing facts are doing so from pan-turkist pages with no scholarly value  and this violates Wikipedias NOR policy. Ossetian is a well known Eastern Iranian language. The above site contains the materials for most of the fabrication:  and it is Original research which contradicts the ideas of the scholarly community.


 * Also here is a link from the current edition of Britannica:.


 * Another link which can help greatly with this article and shows that Ossetic has an inflective morphology. The source quotes a book: Abaev, V.I. 1964. A grammatical sketch of Ossetic. International journal of American linguistics. Publication Thirty-Five, Volume 30, Number 4..  I recommend anyone with access to their local library to check this book out also, since I can guarantee it will contradict everything some politically minded writer has ascribed to Abaev.


 * --Ali doostzadeh 11:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Than you for addressing the factual matter, your findings will surely improve the subject.


 * Looking at case inflection in Ossetic and how it is "distinguished" from Iranian languages by its complex system of nominal case inflection, the competent comparison would be not only with IE's, but also with Adyg and Kartvel, as states Abaev. Without it, such comparison would remain a tunnel view (or, as Scythians would say, "arimaspi").


 * Correct me if I am wrong, the Osseto-Iranian concept is resting on exploratory works of K. Zeiss (1837)and Vs.Miller in 1920es, crowned with keystone of 1949 publication of Abaev. But the keystone has an egg constitution, it is hard and Iranian on the outside, and very circumspect and Kartvello-Adygan on the inside. He carefully hid the Kartvello-Adygan contents in different detailed analyses, while on the hard surface he had to proclaim his unbending loyalty to the Osseto-Iranian concept. Abaev's conclusions still are the last word(s) in science as far as the Ossetian language is concerned, no study was made so far to refute his statements, there is no etymological dictionary of Ossetian dialects, even Swadesh list doest not exist, no Digorian-Ironian dictionary exist either. In that respect Abaev is not just a minority, he is "the" only one. Abaev listed a number of subjects to be studied looking from his 1940es time, and they are still being addressed only on a PC declarative level.


 * For the the paradigms for bæx "horse" in the two major dialects, if Ossetian is IE language, "bæx" is clearly a non-IE borrowing, we all know "horse, hippo, loshad, caballo etc" in IE languages, and there is no cognate of "bæx", so why don't we use a popular IE word like "hand" etc from the Swadesh list to show IE inflections, is not it possible that a borrowed word also borrowed some inflections, like ox-oxen in English? How can anything trustworthy be illustrated with a flawed example? On the contrary, it tends to show that Kartvello-Adygan inflection is in fact a true statement.


 * In another aspect, Ali doostzadeh removed a section that gives percentage numbers of the Ossetian people compositions, eliminating the pertinent information about factual results of the genetic testing. Now, as a result, the section reads the opposite of what the numbers are telling. Before I restore the facts that illuminate the history and composition of the Ossetian languages, maybe Ali doostzadeh can explain how a reader would benefit from this deletion:


 * "Linguistical dialectal division between Ossets is closely parallelled in their genetical composition. Three Ossetian dialects, Ironian, Digorian, and Ardonian, mirror three different genetic makeups. Ironians have male Y-haplogroup more similar to Georgians, the leading member of the Kartvelian linguistical group, than to Digorians. Digorians have male Y-haplogroup more similar to Adygs. Ironians have non-Iranian female mtDNA 81% to 88%, and share 12% to 19% of their mtDNA sequences with Iranian-speaking groups from Isfahan and Tehran. Digorians have female mtDNA of Adygean nations 48% to 87%, versus 12% to 19% of multi-ethnic Iranian samples".


 * So, we mechanically replaced Adygo-Kartvellian references with Iranian, made the language back strictly Iranian, removed the lexical section that states that the dialects have only 10% Iranian words, liberally counted by V.I.Abaev, and what is the result, who is fooled? The language still retains all its non-IE properties, no propaganda can change that, its lexicon is still predominantly Kartvello-Adygian, no propaganda can change that, and the facts can be hidden from the readers of Wikipedia, but not from all other sources. One can blame Abaev for being obsolete, or Pan-Türkism for distorting the facts, but the lexicon is still Kartvello-Adygian until proven othervise. In 60 years nobody challenged the assessment of the illustrious Ossetian V.I.Abaev, until Ali doostzadeh decided othervise. Without these numbers, the whole article is pure propaganda, and with these numbers the Iranian claims are obviously contradictory with the substance of the subject.


 * The advantage of the numbers is that nobody can argue with facts, and if someone does not like them, too bad. The numbers should prevail.

Barefact 20:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Lets step back first. Wikipedia is not a place for non-academic polemic propoganda with regards to anthropology(specially from your website which even claims Soghdians, Sumerians, Elamites, Parthians and thousands of other groups as Turkish).  Note how the first responder in this section said: My 15th edition Encyclopædia Brittanica (1974 -- making it much more recent than the Abaiev work cited) claims that Ossetic is a highly inflected language, preserving all eight of the original Indo-European cases (Micropedia VII; Macropedia 9:450-454)..  The Encyclopedia Britannica (2006) clearly states Ossetian as an Iranian language.  You claimed the Ossetian language was agglunitative but were proven wrong on that account.  No  one can rely on sources from 50 years ago when the latest sources are available.    Your genetic study was misquoted and I quoted the same articles summary.  Yet you claimed Digors were Turks which is not suppored and btw there is no such thing as a Turk genetically today as only 10% at best of modern Anatolia has Turkish genes.  Also the article is about Ossetic language.  I even quoted directly from the genetic article.  Abaev never denied that Ossetian was an Iranian language.   and as you can see from the reference, Ossetian studies has progressed greatly.  Also some of the earlies writings of Abaev were influenced by the Yaphetic theory of Academic Marr, but that theory has been discreted and is actually a source of embarrasment.  Also Sir Harold Baily has done great research on Ossetian language and there is no doubt abouts Iranian nature.  So there is no discussion as I have the latest available sources with all claiming Ossetian as an Iranian language.  For example see the references here: .   Also it seems you do not understand that lexicon does not necessarily have to do with the linguistic relationship.   90% of an English technical article is Greek and Latin  or Ottoman Turkish has 80% Persian/Arabic.  The core of the language of Ossetian is Iranian, because its grammer and original non-borrowed words are Iranians.  I have all the latest sources including the Encyclopedia Britannica (2006) and twisting the scholarship of abaev will not bring any benefit.  For example see here:  where his book is clearly classified under Iranian languages by India University.  Here is another modern source:  from a very well known scholars.


 * And here is an exact quote from genetic stuff edited by the politically motivated user above:: The closeness of the Digorian genes with the Adygs disspels a notion, precipitated by numerous Türkisms in the Digorian dialect, that Digorians are a Türkic tribe assimilated by the Ossetians.  Note none of this information is in the article!


 * Also let me add that all the information this user gives contradicts Abaev's most recent research (since I do not read Russian and taking statements out of context is note useful): A grammatical sketch of Ossetic / by V.I. Abaev ; edited by Herbert H. Paper ; translated by Steven P. Hill.. Too bad I do not know Russian or else I can most likely say that the user is misquoting the work of Abaev or picking out materials while ignoring other materials from the same book.  Also here is another mainstream article:   .  Here is a Professor who worked under Abaev: Studies (with fieldwork) on Ossetic and other Iranian languages spoken in Southern Russia and Central Asia; academic teacher: Prof.Dr. V.I. Abaev..

Finally Abaev himself has said clearly: ''Ossetic 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 North-Ossetic ASSR,  which belongs to the Russian Federation,   and of the South-Ossetic Autonomous Oblast [Region] which belongs to the Georgian Republic. Ossetic is genetically related to the Iranian group of the Indo-European family of languages. From deep antiquity (since the 7th-8th centuries B. C), the languages of the Iranian group were distributed in a vast territory including present-day Iran (Persia),   Central Asia,   and Southern Russia. Ossetic is the sole survivor of the northeastern branch of Iranian languages known as Scythian. The Scythian group included numerous tribes in Central Asia and Southern Russia, known in ancient sources as Scythians, Massageti,  Sakas,  Sarmatians,   Alans,  Roksolans,   etc. In close relationship with these tribes were the Khorezmians and the Sogdians. At the beginning of our era, one of the Scytho-Sarmatian tribes,  the Alans,   advanced to the Northern Caucasian Mountains and mixed with the local Caucasian elements,  thus giving rise to the Ossetic nationality. In the course of centuries-long propinquity to and intercourse with Caucasian languages, Ossetic 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. Among the languages of the Soviet Union belonging to the Iranian family are also Tajik,  Kurdish,   Tat,   Talysh,   Yagnobi,   and Shugni. Among those beyond the border are Persian,  Pashto,   Balochi,   and others. Ossetic is divided into two main dialects:  the eastern,   called Iron, and the Western,   called Digor. The overwhelming majority of Ossetes speak the Iron dialect,  and the literary language is based on it. The creator of the Ossetic literary language is the national poet Kosta Xetagurov (1859-1906).''. So basically the only one that is challenging Abaev is you! while you probably do not speak Ossetic. I looked at an ossetic dictionary of basic words and many of the words are the same in Kurdish and Persian. --Ali doostzadeh 23:29, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the whole "Türkic" controversy can be resolved with a simple change of nomenclature: Ossetic is part of the Irano-Türkic branch of the Indo-Irano-Türkic group of the Indo-Euro-Türkic subfamily of the Türkic languages. Other subfamilies of Türkic are Semito-Türkic, Sino-Tibeto-Türkic, Finno-Ugro-Türkic, and in fact every other language family in Eurasia. Hopefully that clears everything up. Abou 01:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Ali doostzadeh, the 50% caucasian version and 10% Iranian is a much better version of Lexicon, thank you, and congratulations, at least it is not a blatant lie as it was before. Now we need to work on genetics, the version now is sweet and sleazy, but the important numbers were wiped out, the numbers showing that Ossets are 100% Caucasian on male side and 80% Caucasian on female side, with 20% contributed by Persian wives. And the differences between Digorians and Ironians are that one comes from Adyg males and females, and the other from Kartvellian males and females. This is mirrored in the sprinkle of Persian lexicon in their vocabulary, and also in the differences in their respective dialects. Please revise the section to show the facts, not to wobble around them.

Barefact 05:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Ossetic is classified universally as an Iranic language even by ABAEV who you tried to make up a lie against. As per DNA information, it was straight from that article and no Ossets never took Persian wife, and there is no pure Iranian, Caucasian, Turkic genes.  It was the summary from that article.  As Per Iranic vocabulary, there is at least 14000 Indo-Iranian vocabulary in Abaev's work.  More importantly its basic lexicon is Iranic and Abaev has clearly stated it is Iranian.  His etymology dictionary was finished in 1989 btw.  Here one can see a sample of affinity between Ossetic(NE Iranian language) and Balso(NW Iranian language) Ossetic and Iranian has influenced Caucasian languages.[].  Wikipedia is not a pan-turkist club so stop forging lies here.  I have posted Abaev's article in English and it is the best manual we have of Ossetic language and clearly and explicitly he has said it is an Iranian language.  Britannica 2006 has also stated it is an Iranic language.  Wikipedia is not an opinion forum.  All statements must be factual and their veracity neds to be checked with scholarly sources and not pan-turkist revisionism of history.  Here is a real scholar in the field: .  And articles in Wikipedia that deal with history and antrophology should reflect the opinions of scholars who have published in peer reviewed journals and not nationalistic websites who have an ideological goal.  --Ali doostzadeh 17:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Ali doostzadeh, I do not want to take too much of your time to discuss generalities. Unlike you, I do not think that BE is a fossilized codex, fossilized it would not survive for 200+ years. BE editors are watching Wiki with attention, and surely enjoy the hiatus around Ossetian language question and genetics. Unlike you, they read beyond the bottom line, and see when the sum does not add up, both in linguistics and in genetics. 14000 entries is a reflection of the same 800 bases, so the ratio of 5:1 is a correct ratio, and any etymological study that does not look at etymology of the Ossetian phonetical "match" in 90% of the time is looking at non-Iranian, and most likely Adygo-Kartvellian word, and so is not worth the paper it is written on.
 * mtDNA is female, and that's where they found 20% (actually, less than, I am rounding off) matches with female samples of modern Iranian megapolises, which in turn are very multi-ethnic conglomerates. The rest, i.e. 80% of female and 100% of male is Caucasian, which they very coyly phrased,and I hear a Russian accent in that clumsy translation: as "meditated by" the Caucasian males. In this terminology, you and I are "meditated" by our fathers, but carry the genes of our mothers. I know you liked that sleasy phrasing, and I am ready to keep it, but let's be honest too, and put the numbers that speak louder than the feign conclusion. You are not scared of honest numbers, are you?
 * You see, Abaev had to trod the party line, it was a matter of survival, as any deported nation will tell you, but he was honest too, and against the required conclusions he, with a risk for his life, put the honest numbers that he thought the censors would never read, and he was right. That's how we know the true composition of his native language.
 * Barefact 06:26, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Abaev after the dissolution of USSR still wrote Ossetian is an Iranian language so your conspiracy theory as usual is ignorance. Any time you fall short on facts you make up conspiracy theory.  Pretty soon you will say that the Sumerians real name were Turks, but by conspiracy theory, they are called Summerians.  (well you did claim sumerian and every other old language in your page as Turkic). FYI Abaev died 2001.  Had he thought Ossetian was not an Iranian language, he would have stated it after the dissolution of the USSR.  No one takes  conspiracy theories seriously in the Academia..  Also his etymology dictionary contains 30000 Ossetian words and 14000 Indo-Iranian terms. .  It was completed in 1989 and you better read it before giving your false non-philological verdict on Ossetian etymology.
 * He also mentions the basic lexicon of Ossetian is Iranian. Its a multi-volume etymology book on Ossetian that took 31 years to complete and so the opinion from 1989 is very important and actually Abaev was under state pressure in the 1940's and 1950's.  As per DNA, it has no relavence to the Ossetian language, and I have taken out the summary from that article.  This suggests that a common origin of Ossetians from Iran, followed by subsequent male-mediated migrations from their Caucasian neighbours, is the most likely explanation for these results. .  Note DNA suggestions are just that, suggestions.  They are not yet facts either.  And over here is saying that it is a most likely explanation.  Note stop intrepreting DNA results and Language results in accordance to your narrow framework.  BTW the people of Turkey are closer to Greeks than Turks of Central Asia and Caucus.  So are you going to suggest that Turkish is a dialect of Greek.  The fact is also that DNA has nothing to do with language and language shifts.  Take the american continent for example.  So this entery is about Ossetic language.  The fact is both Abaev (who you tried to mirrespent and actually lied about him) and Encyclopedia Britannica 2006 consider Ossetic as an Iranian language.  As per etymology, Abaev again says the basic lexicon is Iranian.  Also his etymological dictionary contains far far more enteries than 2000 words.  It contains 30000 words and at least 14000 Indo-Iranian terms.  Note modern English is about 65% Greek/Latin, but it is a Germanic language nevertheless.    --Ali doostzadeh 16:54, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I added the disputed tag, because the cleansing process that makes what Caucasians know as a Caucasian language into an undisputably Iranian language is being disputed as misleading and biased, and numbers manipulated. Abaev's bases are not the same as Abaev's words, the ratio of 5:1 Caucasian/Iranian stands in both accountings, because they are the properties of the language and do not depend on the accounting method.


 * The abscence of Swadesh list, wich is an accepted method of analysis, for such a cardinal component of Scytho-Iranian concept must be as glaring for you as much as for everybody else. The removal of a statement from the article, that for some reasons the same people that promote Iranian classification of the Ossetian language failed to produce such a simple evidence, is a vandalism to preclude the reader from knowing a major pertinent point. Please restore the Swadesh list information.


 * Genetical comparison of gorge-landlocked Ossetians with USA is preposterous. The cited genetical study gives a clear distinctive picture, other readers opinioned that genetic information is pertinent, and its abscence distorts the subject and is deceptive. You removed the perinent information and substituted it with "male-meditated" female gene. Wow. If you know what it is saying, please spell it out. Without the material information the spin that you copied verbatum is a vandalism to preclude the reader from knowing a major pertinent point.


 * Since there are differing opinions, to make the statements to comply with Wikipedia first principle, the Neutral point of view, the least that needs to be added is a qualification in front of every term "Iranian": "in the opinion of most Western scientists is Iranian, disputed by Caucasians, minority of Western scientists and majority of non-Western scientists". We can have this as a preambulae to the characteristics of the language.


 * Every statement that Abaev made about Morphology Lexicon Semantics Syntaxis Phonology of his native language as not belonging to the Iranian type was cleansed to make it appear that they do belong. This is a misrepresentation, and the deletion of citations and references is a vandalism to preclude the reader from knowing a major pertinent point.


 * To remove the note in the bibliography pointing to the cardinal nature of the Abaev's work within the structure of the Scytho-Iranian hypothesis is is a vandalism to preclude the reader from knowing a major pertinent point.


 * With the above changes, the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view will be satisfied. I hope this solution will satisfy you too. I would also suggest that in cases where contention is high, like the agglutination subject alleged by Abaev and disputed by you, you can dig up a short sentense, like "I put cup on table" to illustrate your point.
 * Barefact 18:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Again You are NOT a philologist. ABAEV is.  AND HE CLEARLY STATES OSSETIC IS IRANAIN WITHOUT ANY CONSPIRACY THEORIES.  LANGUAGE ALSO DOES NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH DNA as only 5% of Turks in Turkey might have Turkish gene but their language is altaic.  On the Lexicon Abaev's etymology dictionary has 16000 Indo-Iranian terms and now you are claiming 400.. cmon please do not lie and read his four volume etymology book.  Abaev also states clearly that the basic lexicon of Ossetian is Iranic.  Now it might be hard for you to understand but Ottoman Turkish was 80% Persian/Arabic.  So even numerous borrowings does not change this fact just like there are more Greek/Latin words in English than Germanic words.  For example in a technical article this number could reach to 90% greek and latin terms.  Yet the language is considered by philologist to be Germanic and not Romance/Greek.  Also your conspiracy theory was put to rest as Abaev after the USSR also clearly states Ossetic as an Iranian language..  Encyclopedia Britannica and every single linguist that has studied ossetian calls it an Iranian langage.  You lied before that Ossetic was an agglutinative language and this lie which you wrote was exposed.  What was the source of that lie?  The same bogus references of course and so far you have failed to bring one modern English reference where as I brought all of Abaev's book on Ossetic which he clearly and explicity calls it an Iranian language whose basic lexicon is also Iranian.  There is no differing opinion on the Iranic affiliation of Ossetians by any philologist.   .   Encyclopedia Britannica 2006,Encarta, Columbia encyclopedia and thousands of reference has clearly stated it as an Iranian language.  The East and West Iranians divered long time ago and the genetic study has nothing to do with the position of Ossetic as an Iranian language as genetics and language are two different phenomenons (people of Turkey) although you abused the genetic study which claims Ossetians have considerable Iranic blood.  You are not a linguist nor scholar so please do not insert your POV into academia.  The opinion that ossetian is Iranian is not disputed by any  philologist and it is universaly accepted as an Iranian language, even by Abaev who you tried to misrepresent just like you falsified a fact that Ossetic is agglutinative which is not.   Also I would reread this article and pehraps this is your fallacy: In a later article Abaev recognized that the conclusions of the "New Linguistic Doctrine" were fundamentally incorrect, but he praised Marr for raising important questions about language.  So the Yaphetic theory was disowned by Abaev an as you can see he clearly states before the Yaphetic theory and after that Ossetic is Iranian.   --Ali doostzadeh 01:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Too many words not enough meat. You deleted references to Abaev and complain there are no references. I will restore them, thank you. You copied the Abaev's summary page, which is the basis for Scytho-Ossetian Hypothesis, you praise Abaev, but erased all other Abaev's statements about his native language, which contradict his summary loyalty speach. Its duplicious on your part. Its good that you do not belittle the prominent authority any more, but at least have honesty to say that in his book he has contaradictory statements. "Agglutination is lie, and Iranian is truth" is a pure deception. Persian is 1/3 Turkic, 1/3 Arabic, but it is still classified as Persian in spite of its lexicon, but for its grammar. Same is with Ossetian, there is no Iranian grammar, only Caucasian, and some Persian borrowings adopted to Caucasian language. Yaphetic is Abaev's euphemism for Caucasian, its a known fact, he could not say Caucasian at the time. There is much more to it, but I have a feeling that there is no point to reason or try to accomodate you. Before you delete, though, please cite the verifiable sources for your lexical claims that contain etymological counts of Iranian, and Kartvellian, and Nakh, and Arabic, and Turkic, and other IE languages, and maybe other non-IE languages Abaev did not mention. I hope you can support your claims. About genetics in respect to language, readers told you to keep it. Arbitrary deletion of pertinent contents is a vandalism. Regards,

Barefact 00:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Barefact, but you talk nonsence: "Same is with Ossetian, there is no Iranian grammar, only Caucasian, and some Persian borrowings adopted to Caucasian language". Surely enough the Iranian words in Ossetic are not Persian borrowings (though there are some late Persians borrowings through Georgian often with the Georgian ending -i); surely enough there is Iranian grammar in Ossetic (in the verb declension it's IE, not Caucasic or Turkic; Ossetic is not ergative, as many Caucasic languages are, etc.). Your theory of Abaev saving his people from persecutions is not quite strong: other scholars called Ossetic an Iranian language long before the Soviet power, I mean Miller and later other scholars in those other countries, where they could say whatever they wanted about Ossetic (French, German and other scholars). - Slavik IVANOV 23:34, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I think that describes yourself. Too many words but no meat.  Your references are either out-dated or false.  Abaev's 4 volume monumental work on etymology finished in 1989  contains about 16000 Indo-Iranian terms.  So either you lack knowledge or you are repeating the same lies.  Also Persian is not 1/3 Turkish, and this is the same sort of nonsense you make up about Ossetic.  How many times are you going to make up nonsense? Persian could be at most 1-2% Turkish(and I said at most since I can differentiate easily between Persian Arabic Turkic words)  whereas modern Anatolian Turkish despite Ataturk's purge has about 14% Persian.  Ossetian is a highly inflectional language unlike agglutinative cacausian language.  As per my lexical claim, unlike you whose all quotes' have been repeatedely shown false, I present this English article: .  Note the similarities between Baluch (an Indo-Iranian language in SE Iran) to Ossetic.  And this is just the tip of the iceberg.  As per accomodation too bad for you, all the most recent references say clearly Ossetian is Iranic.  Even Abaev himself has said the basic lexicon of Ossetic is Iranian. .  Now you were totally debunked in this article:  and this shows that all of your statements from your pan-turkist website [www.turkicworld.org] is false and no scholar takes it seriously.  The study of Ossetic has been done by philologist and not by pan-turkists and they all uniformly accept that Ossetic is an Iranian language. There is no differing opinion on the Iranic affiliation of Ossetians by any philologist.   .   Encyclopedia Britannica 2006,Encarta, Columbia encyclopedia and thousands of reference has clearly stated it as an Iranian language.  --Ali doostzadeh 16:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I can give you a hint, for a rough assessment, I did it 10-15 years ago myself for Persian language. I found an English-Persian dictionary with source (Arab), (Turk) etc, notated, took about 10 random pages of most popular letter, say P, and counted. In 20 min I knew approx. composition of the Persian, within the limits of my curiosity. A child can do it. About the rest of the inculpations, I quoted Abaev verbatum, it is not my fault that he calls his native language agglutinative, that he says that its flexity has non-Iranian, but Caucasian (Yapetic) character, etc. Yapetic has nothing to do with the word count or agglutination, don't try to confuse the issue. He could not say directly Nakh, they were holocosted at that time, and he would be too if his language was too long. So he was singing Iranian song, for Stalin and you, to save his people. That thing has not stopped till today. Maybe you've heard that Nakhs were dying for a right to say what they want. And now they do say that Ossetic is a dialect of their language. Abaev and they know better than anybody else. And each word is verifiable. 68.228.82.93 06:15, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Ossetian Lexicon
1. OK, here is the meat: You falsified the numbers and citation you pulled from Adriano Valerio Rossi "Ossetic and Balochi in V. I. Abaev's Slovar". You proclaimed that out of 30,000 Ossetian, 14,000 are Iranian words, i.e. the Iranian lexicon in Ossetian is 50%. But the sentense reads: "The more than 16,000 Indo-Iranian items out of a total of 30,000 items belonging to languages other than Ossetic that appear in the four volumes of the Slovar' give an idea of the breadth of material used and the results achieved, making it possible to place Ossetic firmly in its actual historical and dialectological context for the first time, both with regard to its original linguistic affiliation and its present geographical location (Caucasic, Turkish, etc)."

And that is a true statement before you perverted it, consistent whith the othet Abaev approximations: 30,000 items constitute 50% of total studied vocabulary, they are etymologyzed to languages other than Ossetic, and the other 50% are naturally falling on the Ossetic language vocabulary. Of the 30,000 non-Ossetic items, 16,000 are Indo-Iranian items, or 25% of the total studied vocabulary. The other 14,000 or 25% of the studied vocabulary are Caucasic, Turkish, etc.

It also should be noted that Baluchi, which is in the study counted as Indo-Iranian, in fact is not an etalon of Indo-Iranian either, because "in the treatment of a multilingual culture, such as that of Balochi, which lacks a long written tradition, the term "loanword" itself may be misleading" (L. Rzehak, "A preliminary note on kinship and tribe of the Baluch in Turkmenistan," Balochistan Studies, 8-10, 2000-2002). And also so much for Iranian etalon: apart from etymological dictionaries of single Iranian languages (Abaev, Bailey) and from the very first pages of Rastorgueva and Edelman, 2000, no general comparative Iranian dictionary existed at the time of L. Rzehak publication. And in the treatment of a multilingual culture, such as that of Persian (which is correctly labeled as Turco-Persian, and existed as a symbiotic Turco-Persian language for 500 years), the term "loanword" itself may be very misleading.

But apart from these footnotes, you should apologyze for misrepresenting the citation, and restore the Lexicon section removed in an act of repeat vandalism. I do not mind keeping the rest of the proclamations as long as the facts are not deliberately hidden from the scrutiny of the users.

Barefact 16:43, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Again try to write something that is comprehensible. The 16000 terms Indo-Iranian terms are cognates with ossetic words and not unrelated to  Ossetian words or else Abaev would not mention it.  So out of 30,000 that is a large number or else they would not be in his etymology.  So far you have not brought modern English reference for any of your claims.  You falsely claimed Ossetic is an agglutinative language and your perversion of facts was shown above.   Also it seems you don't seem to understand that English has more Latin/Greek terms than Germanic terms but it is considered a Germanic language.  Note just like you didn't know about Persian etymology (claimed 1/3 Turkish), you are claiming nonsense here.  The fact of the matter is that Abaev, the other above and every single modern reference considers Ossetian as an Iranian language.  So your pan-turkist POV is not welcomed in Wikipedia.  As for the Baluchi words, I looked at them and they are all cognates with Kurdish and Persian as well.  That is why Ossetian is an Indo-Iranian language.  There is no such a thing as a Turco-Persian language and Persian is never called Turco-Persian.  I think you need to stop falsifying facts.  Persian has only about 1% Turkic loan words and there are many books without even a single Turkish word and now you want to call persian as Turco-Persian.  Turkish has much more Iranian loan words (for example see Doefer).  You are just a plain falsifier of facts.  As per Baluchi, it is an Indo-Iranian language and so far every source you have brought when actually checked was false. .  You obviously have a problem comprehending that Baluchi tribes have sub-tribe called Brahui who speak a Dravidian related language(but that is called Brahui in linguistics) and also the Baluchi's of Turkmenistan speak Turkmen and Russian so they are multi-lingual.  The Baluchi’s in Iran speak Persian and Baluchi so they are multi-lingual.  They Baluchi’s in Pakistan speak Urdu and Baluchi so they are multi-lingual.  Many Hispanic Americans are multi-lingual but it does not mean that Spanish and English are both Romance or Germanic.  I think you are not comprehending the sentence well.

So this has nothing to do with the fact that Baluchi is classified as an Indo-Iranian language. That is why your other Wikipedia madeup false thread was deleted by the administrators because so far all you have written is false materials and lacked meet. As per etymology, finally let me add this statement from Abaev’s etymological work according to the paper by Rossi which is here:[ http://www.azargoshnasp.net/languages/ossetian/ossetian.htm]. Note that Rossi says on pg 375 that many previously thought ‘’loan words’’ that were thought to be Caucasian and Turkic in Ossetic were re-studied by Abaev and their Iranianess were established in the etymological dictionary(took over 30 years to complete and Abaev studied Baluchi at this time as well). So the final statement we know is what Abaev says in the 1964: The basic lexicon of Ossetic is Iranian. The fact that his Slovar contains 16000 Indo-Iranian terms that are not Ossetic shows the huge lexicon affinity. Also I know you see Turk in every object but just in case you were not aware what serious scholars believe there is Indo-Iranian languages (Ossetic, Persian, Avesta, Baluchi, Talyshi, Kurdish..) and Altaic languages(Anatolian Turkish, Uighyur, Kazakh..). --Ali doostzadeh 18:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * "Again try to write something that is comprehensible." Just for you. 30,000 are non-Ossetic borrowings into Ossetic, see the quote you distorted. Clear 1? 16,000 of them may be linked with Indo-Iranian. Clear 2? The other 14,000 loanwords are non-Ossetic borrowings into Ossetic from non-Indo-Iranian languages. Clear 3? The rest of the language is not borrowing, it is aborigional. Clear 4? The rest is 50% or another 30,000 items. Clear 5? Not borrowed 50% is Caucasian lexicon, citation on the Abaev's page you deleted. Clear 6? Caucasian lexicon consists of Kartvellian and Adygian, clear 7? Which "clear number" you pretend to have a problem with?


 * PS, the Azeri article that you claimed to author is balanced, very well written, and presents dissentions in a neutral format that is not assaultive to opposing viewers. It illuminates dissentions for the benefit of the reader, not a partsan writer. It tells about Turco-Persian language, you should know it if you really wrote it. I hope I am not sending you and your buddies on another vigilante campagn to erase any mentioning of it.
 * Barefact 20:40, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Firstly there is no Turco-Persian language. There is an altaic family and indo-Iranian family.  Secondly read the statement carefully:  the 16000 Indo-Iranian terms out of the total 30000 items belonging to languages other than than Ossetic that appears in four valume.  Now the other 14000 could have a large portion of Indo-European non-Indo-Iranian terms.  For example Russian which has influenced Ossetian could have a large portion of the 14000.  Have you thought of that?    The 16000 Indo-Iranian terms (and the other 14000 could be large portion of Indo-European Russian terms), shows clearly that Ossetian has lots of Indo-Iranian lexicon and indeed these are cognates and not borrowed words.   That is why the word item is used and not loan words.  Until you count all the enteries of the 4 volume book, then you can't give a percentage on the lexicon.  But Abaev clearly states: the basic lexicon of Ossetian is Iranian.  Also you don't seem to understand that lexicon does not necessarily influence philological affiliation.  Case in point is English where the majority of terms are Latin/Greek.  The article mentions influence on Ossetian language, but it does not give a percent and the reason is that until all the items in the 4 volume book are counted, then we can't have a percentage.  I did not author any Azeri article, but I did partake in them.  I am not assaultive on facts.  But if someone claims Ossetian is a non-Indo-Iranian language, then that is flatly false since all the references have called it an Iranian language and even Abaev who you claimed to champion clearly says so.  --Ali doostzadeh 01:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * So count them. You should be able to. You are making a point of deliberate deletion the statement of counts by Abaev, presenting him as an offball amateur who does not know his own language, wiping the jewels he left about his language like it is a dirt. Now I see you can read and eventually tell the difference between non-Ossetic borrowings and indigenous Ossetic, so either count them, or find a verifyable source who counted them, or restore the Abaev's words. A Lexicon is a major component of the language, your blanket deletion of that section is a partizan vandalism. And until you counted them, restore the "Disputed" tag too, its removal was a vandalism too. Barefact 04:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * When a work has 160000 non-Ossetic Indo-Iranian cognates (not loan words as you tried to claim) and Abaev has written it, then there is no need for you to insert false statements and claim Ossetian only has 400 Indo-Iranian words!! You go count them yourself, what is certain is that Abaev (in English 1964) has said The basic Lexicon of ossetic is Iranian.  So this runs counter to your claim that Ossetic has only 400 Iranian words!!  In one article we see cognates with close to 400 Baluchi basic words where Baluchi itself is a NW Iranian Language and Ossetian is a NE Iranian language and have been separated for a long long long time and their location (caucus) and SE Iran shows how far the two are geographically.   Also Abaev himself claims that the basic lexicon of Ossetic is Iranian.  This is statement of Abaev in English language and you are wipping dirt on the jewl that he has left behind not me.   Also again Abaev and every source has clearly stated Ossetic is an Iranian language.  As per his 4-volume book, you can go ahead and count it (although I do not trust your counting even because of all the forgeries I have seen.. I will ask a reputable University of Chicago Professor soon about the percentage).  Also the yaphetic theory of Academic Marr has been discredited and so materials relating to this theory has no place in Academia when Abaev lates work itself finished (1989) long after the disspiation of that bogus theory.  Also nice try in bringing back a falsified article:, but as you see Wikipedia is not a place for ethnic propoganda and Original Research. Also you tried to falsify statements like Ossetic is agglutinative or Ossetic is non-Indo-Iranian, Baluchi is not Indo-Iranian!, Persian is Perso-Turkic.. All these statements are false as you can see not one modern Western source supports your claim.  So you need to stop vandalizing pages with false information.  No one supports you claim.  Abaev who clearly states Ossetic is Iranian and its basic lexicon is Iranian.  I do not see any need for a tag here as there is no disputed material in academic circles.  You need to get familiar with this:  so that you stop claiming false statements.  Also Abaev has another article here you should read before you ascribe more of your unsubstantiated thoughts to him: .  There is no reason for a dispute sign since so far you have not brought any modern  language material to backup any of your claims.  Unless you bring some modern recent academic English sources that backup your claim on the affiliation of Ossetian, then you should desist in trying to push your POV.  --Ali doostzadeh 05:44, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I can give you a hint, for a rough assessment, I did it 10-15 years ago myself for Persian language. I found an English-Persian dictionary with source (Arab), (Turk) etc, notated, took about 10 random pages of most popular letter, say P, and counted. In 20 min I knew approx. composition of the Persian, within the limits of my curiosity. A child can do it. About the rest of the inculpations, I quoted Abaev verbatum, it is not my fault that he calls his native language agglutinative, that he says that its flexity has non-Iranian, but Caucasian (Yapetic) character, etc. Yapetic has nothing to do with the word count or agglutination, don't try to confuse the issue. He could not say directly Nakh, they were holocosted at that time, and he would be too if his language was too long. So he was singing Iranian song, for Stalin and you, to save his people. That thing has not stopped till today. Maybe you've heard that Nakhs were dying for a right to say what they want. And now they and their neighbors do say that Ossetic is a dialect of their language. Abaev and they know better than anybody else. On top of it, they use facts instead of bigoted demagogy. And each word is verifiable. 68.228.82.93 06:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I am not sure what to say except that you either misread your book or you don't remember. You know why?  You claimed that Persian is 1/3 Turkic and 1/3 Arabic and now you mention the letter P.  Per your information the letter P is not in the Arabic language.  Not a single Arabic borrowing in Persian has the letter P.. And if you are talking about English P, then you are falsifying again.  There is about 14% Persian in modern Turkish whereas there is hardly any Turkish in Persian.  Indeed in Persian you can read Shahnameh which is more than 90% Persian lexicon and has only about one Turkish word: Khaghan!  Also Turkish has had no influence on Persian grammer whereas Persian has influenced Turkish grammer considerably.  You make it too easy to spot your bogus theories which are designed to enhance pan-turkist revionism.   As per Yaphetic theory, it is bogus: [] and at one time all USSR scholars were forced to makeup stuff to correspond to this theory.  But after 1950's the theory was disregarded and so Abaev's 1962 work which is translated to English has the final say beside all his statements after the dissolvement of USSR.  Also I am the one that quoted Abaev since the material I presented is English and Abaev clearly says Ossetic is Iranian and its basic lexicon is Iranian.  Now you claimed that Abaev said there are 2000 caucasian words in ossetic.  Comparing that to the 16000 Indo-Iranian terms, that is minuscle!  As per your conspiracy theories you can throw them out the window since after the dissolution of the USSR Abaev consistently and clearly says Ossetic is an Iranian language just like he has said so here..  Read the introduction:, it is from Abaev's own words.  Now you are claiming Abaev had to say the language was Iranian (Although before you claimed that Miller was the first person to claim Ossetian as Iranian which is way before Abaev!!) in order so that Stalin would not kill off Ossetians.  See your conspiracy theories have too many loopholes.  The fact is that many other people besides Abaev have also studied Ossetian and they also affirm it is Iranian.  So this is the end of discussion.  Wikipedia should not allow  plagarism and POV  in the Ossetic entery.  As per Stalin he did not like Iranians and I can give good proofs, but I am not here to develop a conspiracy theory.  The fact is Encyclopedia Britannica 2006, Encyclopedia Encarta 2006 and Columbia Encyclopedia 2006 show Ossetian as Iranian.  Do a google search: {Ossetic Iranian} and you get 90000 links.  By the way I would read the third article here:  where the author has claimed that there are also many Iranian words in Caucasian non-Indo-Iranian languages.  Languages borrow from each other, some more and some less.  Turkish has borrowed a lot from Persian and Persian has not borrowed much from Turkish but it has borrowed a lot from Arabic.  English is more Greek/Latin than Germanic.  All these do not change linguistic affiliation. Abaev clearly states: the basic lexicon of Ossetic is Iranian.  It is there in his 1962 work.  His etymological dictionary contains many many Indo-Iranian cognates and even assuming that in his etymological dictionary the majorty of Ossetic words used today are not Indo-Iranian, this does not change language affiliation since the majority of words in a English dictionary are not Germanic either.  Today  (2006) Ossetic is Iranian language:  and it won't change either beause many scholars have reached that conclusion and there is no academic opposing viewpoint and so you need to stop pushing your POV.    --Ali doostzadeh 06:36, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Ali doostzadeh, no meat again, only proclamations. Please either count the lexicon, or find a verifyable source who counted them, or restore the Abaev's words about lexicon. Thank you for reinstating the dispute tag. And sorry for "P", I do not remember the details. The point is that you look for a most representative example, with understanding that the test is only an order of magnitude. I would prefer a reference, though I would trust you not to lie in this instance. Actually, the count is for you, not for me, I am past that stage. I hope you grasped the concept, even though you do not acknowledge it. Good luck Barefact 19:17, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think everything has been said.. you are too much grasped in conspiracy theories. As per the percentage of Indo-Iranian components in modern Ossetian Lexicon, in due time I will get a figure (I have emailed several experts).  Thanks--Ali doostzadeh 19:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This is precisely my point. You do not know the subject, and still you took upon yourself and your chronies to delete the lexicon statement of Abaev about his native language, argue that his estimate of the lexicon is incompetent, obsolete and untrustworthy. You also deleted the Swadesh List section, again without providing any support. Since you would not either count the lexicon or find a verifyable source who counted them, please be courteous enough to restore the Abaev's words about lexicon starting from the point of your initial vandalism.


 * You still can express your beliefs in a dissent statement something like "However, in the opinion of the Western etc..."


 * Barefact 20:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't start again. You are the one putting words in Abaev's mouth.  Abaev has explicitly said Ossetic is Iranian and its basic lexicon is Iranian.  This is in the web from his own book.. even after the dissolution of the USSR. You claimed Ossetic is agglutinative, which it was not!  So all your claims were non-factual.   As per lexicon, there is much more than 400 Iranic words in Ossetic as you can see he has at least 16000 Indo-Iranian cognates in his book.  Just because I do not know the percentage from his 4 volume book does not mean your statement is correct.  So far you have put too many non-factual information to be trusted.  I am awaiting email from actual linguists who have studied and know Ossetic.  One is in University of Chicago.  So till then, we do not know the percentage.  --Ali doostzadeh 20:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, if you do not restore it, I will. Do not start another rv war, it will be your last for a while. Don't use proxies to gain the upper hand. Just keep your head cool. Regards, Barefact 20:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I won't let you restore since you need to bring actual English materials, since most of your russian material has been falsely translated and quoted. A good example of your false materials are given here: .  In this page you also made many false claims like Ossetic is not Iranian  (even though Abaev has clearly stated it is) and Ossetic is agglutinating whereas it was found to be an inflective language.  And you better not break the 3-rv rule.  Your website www.turkicworld.org is full of false information and so far you have had one entery closed due to false information: [].  Other people are witnessing this and you could be banned from Wikipedia if you continue putting false unsupported materials in the text.  Abaev's 4 volume book is the most recent and complete updated information on Ossetic etymology and you need to get a percentage from there.  There are at least 16000 Indo-Iranian cognates and terms.  Since you have put too many false materials on the web, you need to stop with your false materials. I have an expert linguistic about the percentage and they hopefully will email back.  So you need to desist in putting your nationalistic POV here.  Since your quotes on Ossetic grammer and affiliation turned out to be false, I have every right to make sure you do not put more false information here.  Just like you did here: --Ali doostzadeh 20:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I just wonder, if you are claiming that you do not understand the language of the original, how can you with a straight face claim a bad translation? You really speak with a Djilan tongue, using the Scythian word. You can use on-line Prompt for translations to help you verify the citations, or you can e-mail to your more educated friends. Once again, you are blaiming translations, but your real objective is the message itself. Just cool down, give other readers a chance too. Thanks, Barefact 21:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * You are not making sense. The English translation of Abaev's work has been done by Professional.  In it Abaev clearly states: Ossetic is Iranian,The basic lexicon of Ossetic is iranian.  Don't remove the sntence since everyone can see it clearly in English and the whole book is available online.  We are not talking about scythians here..Also some linguistic materials when Yaphetic theory in USSR official policy does not count as authoritative sources and one must use modern text and Abaev's recent works.  Abaev's book which has been translated to English is after the Yaphetic theory.  He clearly states the basic lexicon of ossetic is Iranian.  So stop vandalizing.  --Ali doostzadeh 21:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

A clear example of disfiguration of Abaev's quote by barefact
This is an actual quote from Abaev available in English here:

'''In the course of centuries-long propinquity to and intercourse with Caucasian languages, Ossetic 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. ''' Note the actual quote is in the first link: [] directly taken from Abaev

Now barefact who disfigures quotes has given himself permission to go against the obvious and he forgifies [] and writes: '''Ossetic is similar to Caucasian languages 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, arouse considerable doubt. '''

Note the guy can not produce one English source that agrees with him and he even has to disfigure an actual statement from Abaev(1962)! The compendium article on Ossetic which is very complete will soon be available on a friend's website. It has detailed information on all aspects of Ossetic and it is from 1989. Although the above example and barefact's other lie that Persian is 1/3 Turkish should be sufficient reason to reject anything this person says since it is most likely forgery. Of course forgery is nothing new for barefact, one look at his site and pretty much every ancient people is related to Turks somehow. Such bogus theories have no place in Wikipedia and that is why barefact can not produce one modern English source that slightly even agrees with him. --alidoostzadeh 23:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Once again ali, great research! I hope he will stop his vandalism.Khosrow II 23:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Once again, Ali doostzadeh, great deception, and another double foot in the mouth. Your "citation" was was wtitten by you, not me, (Revision as of 23:52, 25 August 2006 (edit)Khosrow II (Talk | contribs)(rv until consensus is made) + Revision as of 23:55, 28 August 2006 (edit)Ali doostzadeh (Talk | contribs)(removed barefacts one man show vs all sources nonsense by barefact.), its a first foot. Kudos from you, Khosrow II and me.


 * Secondly, your "quotation" replaced my quotation from the 1949 Abaev's book and its faximile that you ventured to censor out as evidence so many times, and not my alleged 1964 Abaev quote. This is srikingly similar to your inability to dissern "Ossetic" vs "non-Ossetic". Its a deceit and another foot.


 * On the other hand, you finally produced a tangible reference by Thordarson, a phrase of which you so persistently were deleting, ref. page 2 about linguistic surrounding of the Ossetian language. Thordarson's work can be used to address specific issues of morphology, grammar, etc, especially that Abaev is his main source. Again, I would rather cooperate than to fight. Barefact 23:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Abaev, are you serious? He just showed everyone how you are misconstrewing facts and changing quotes to suit your own agenda. For you to sit here and act like what Ali just said above doesnt even exist is just ludicrous.Khosrow II 23:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

That is correct and it is almost unbelievable! I just showed everyone how barefact actually disfigured Abaev's quote. Here is the difference between the current article and Barefact's edit (note I provide a link unlike him which is not clear what he is trying to point to) :. This is Abaev's quote found in the introduction of his book exactly: [Abaev, V.I. A grammatical sketch of Ossetic http://www.azargoshnasp.net/languages/ossetian/ossetian.htm ]

{{cquote|In the course of centuries-long propinquity to and intercourse with Caucasian languages, Ossetic 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.

This is barefacts disfigurement of the quote:

'''Ossetic is similar to Caucasian languages 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, arouse considerable doubt. '''

Note the wording and different meanings after barefacts disfiguration of the quote! It is two different sentences with two different meanings. He totally disfigured Abaev's quote! I am wondering if his other quotes have something to do with this or not? But either way my Abaev quote (1962) and Thordarson (1989) are much newer. He also is cut & pasting oneliners(and who can trust his translation and misquotes although by default his text is from 1949) and purposely not quoting anything from page 1 to 56 from his own source. Also the secion he is quoting is titled Dialectal study of Caucasus mountain languages . Note in the source he quotes above there is a section: Ossets - the remains of Scythians - Iranians  and he is not quoting anything about Iranianness of Ossetic from the source he allegedly is using. Basically until there is an English translation of the whole book, it is not usable since I have exposed barefact several times now and also all the sources I brought (even from Abaev) were newer(1962,1989,2006) and more importantly they were all in English and more numerous. Either way as Ilya said the Thordarson article (1989) is correct and very clear and was written in the West (so no political mumbo-jumbo about Stalin and etc.) and the author knows Ossetic very well (He is Professor at a major German university). Also if I were barefact, I would not revert since he already broke the 3rr rule once and next-time it could be 48 hours to a week and then afterwards a month.. So any discussion is welcome, but if he indeed has a radically different point than all the scholarly sources I mentioned, he should bring it forward with a English source from the modern era from a major scholar. Else the issue is closed. --alidoostzadeh 00:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Ossetic
Well folks here is a detailed and complete article on all aspects of Ossetic Grammer. Thordarson, Fridrik. 1989. Ossetic. Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, ed. by Ru"diger Schmitt, 456-79. Wiesbaden: Reichert.

It is from 1989 realible source and in English and so its veracity is intact and contradicts lots of the claims that barefact falsely attributes to Ossetic (or takes one liners out of context). --alidoostzadeh 00:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

the substratum theory
Because I do read Russian and have some works by Abaev, I can answer why the author is so contradictive on the origins of the Ossetic. In his many articles published in different years V. I. Abaev wrote about the substratum theory: according to his idea an Eastern Iranian language was adopted by a Caucasian people; that's how it rests Iranian but has so much of Caucasian properties. Abaev also mentions Armenian (Armeno-ossetica, 1978) as the other IE language in the Caucasus region that was probably influenced by local substratum. He also speaks about the antropological type of Ossetes, about semantic links (as naming "face" by a compound word "cæsgom: cæst+kom" meaning "eye+mouth" that is also found in other neighbouring languages, while the words are not of Caucasian origin; as using similar proverbs, etc.) and about their culture which are inseparable of the Caucasian world: that is his other reason for the substratum theory. - Slavik IVANOV 23:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't doubt that we are talking about a language that is a) relatively recently intrusive to the Caucasus and b) learned by natives from a proportionally small political elite from the steppe (i.e. most modern Ossetic speakers are descended from people who have lived there for millenia). Even relatively small folk movements bringing major technological or organizational changes can affect linguistic patterns massively (although some immigrations can be large enough to leave a very large genetic footprint -- cf. the recent study on the genetic relatedness of Frisians and residents of eastern England).  All of this is pretty much accepted in this day and age: people carry genes in their gonads and languages and cultures in their brains, so you can't always connect genes and cultural and linguistic features (it's especially difficult in places like modern North America -- I'm living proof!)


 * My concerns about the genetic evidence that was here are threefold: first, I suspect it is outdated in a field that has evolved so rapidly in the past twenty-five years; second, the description of "Turkic" and "Caucasian" physical features is too simplistic (we should say "genetically intrusive features putatively connected with influx of Turkic-speaking nomads," or something like that); and third, the way it was presented, there was little contextualization -- it was as if all the figures and percentages quoted were somehow to speak for themselves. An old instructor of mine used to use a military analogy:  "...coordinate your attack before you start tossing evidence grenades around, or someone will get hurt -- probably you!"


 * I would be happy to see the material re-incorporated, but we should work on a separate sub-page and get all the kinks worked out first. We're going to be taking a large ammount of specialized research and putting it into terms a layman can understand, while still keeping it informative and useful. That is not always an easy task.  We also need to make sure we have the most up-to-date info and scholarly analyses we can get.  If other scholars have done any work on the archaeogenetics of Ossetia in the meantime, let's try to find it. --Jpbrenna 20:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks Ivan. I want to just bring up your other quote here in response to barefact: grammar, only Caucasian, and some Persian borrowings adopted to Caucasian language". Surely enough the Iranian words in Ossetic are not Persian borrowings (though there are some late Persians borrowings through Georgian often with the Georgian ending -i); surely enough there is Iranian grammar in Ossetic (in the verb declension it's IE, not Caucasic or Turkic; Ossetic is not ergative, as many Caucasic languages are, etc.). Your theory of Abaev saving his people from persecutions is not quite strong: other scholars called Ossetic an Iranian language long before the Soviet power, I mean Miller and later other scholars in those other countries, where they could say whatever they wanted about Ossetic (French, German and other scholars). .


 * As per genetics, I am not sure if it is appropriate for this article, but the article mentioned that Ossetics have a lot of affinity with Iranians of Iran as well. (Note genotype sometimes widely differs from phenotype).  But I think genetic material is not relavent to Ossetic as a language.  Just like English or German ... do not have it. --alidoostzadeh 21:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you about grenades, its a good point. Without willing to hurt anybody, the abscence of the substance and its over-political declarations made the article a non-substantial stub. For whatever reasons, Abaev was clear in 1949: all properties of Ossetic language are non-Iranian, lexicon is 80% non-IE, 90% non-Iranian, and the other 10% elucidated to the IE and Iranian are not more than long shots candidates. And all these factual statements in the 1949 publication were covered by an umbrella of Iranian declarations with a very flimsy substantiation. In his 4-word example of Iranian "basic" words, one word, for "hand", is Nakh, and there is no chance that he did not know it.


 * That is why the objective works of Nasidze are so informative, for a gorge-locked population it defines the components of the "substratum". Nearly 100% Caucasion papas and 80% Caucasion mamas coming from 3 very distinct substratum language groups could not produce any other linguistic effect than what Abaev describes. A sprinkle of Iranian mamas would add to a pre-existing Persian-derived lexicon, accumulated over the centuries of using Persian (and Azeri) as lingua franca accross all the Caucasus (Ibn Haukal).


 * It is notable that in his 1964 Dictionary, Abaev almost does not use the Adyg and Nakh identification. The Nakh at the time of compilation were a deported people, and Abaev managed to skip the etymologies altogether. Undifferentiated Caucasian in his 1964 is ca 42.5%, Kartvellian 12.8%, Persian (elucidated) 18.8%, Türkic 12.0%, Adyg 4.0%, and Mongol, Nakh, Arabic all under or around 1.0%. Elucidated IE is at 7.6%, but comparisons are terribly remote. Considering that the Nakhs state that Ossetic is a Nakh language, it is probable that most of the "Undifferentiated Caucasian" 42.5% belongs to the Nakh language. But so far there is no publication that analyzed the Nakh/Ossetic connection. Barefact 19:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Again your conspiracy theories are without any facts.  Ivan also clearly says Ossetic is iranian and is saying that one theory is that there was a language replacement with small, he is not saying Ossetic is caucasian!   So far you have had your enteries deleted because they were non-factual.  Ilya Yakubovich who knows Ossetic has said that only 4 words on the Ossetic Swadesh list is non-Iranian.   Abaev clearly says Ossetic is Iranic and the basic lexicon is Iranic and grammer is iranic and everyone has access to his 1962 book.   Either way so far you have not shown any English work and were caught red handed distorting sources.   When Abaev clearly states Ossetic is Iranian even in his 1949 work (and you completely ignore that whole long section), I think you need to desist from inserting  false information that is not included in any reference or Encyclopedia.   Abaev has a section basic lexicon of Ossetic in the 1949 work and they are all Iranian.  His 4 volume book on ossetic etymology also is clearly Iranian and has at least 14000 Iranian words that are cognates to ossetic word.   The genetic information was also disfigured by you since it shows Ossetians have good amount of Iranica DNA, although the entery is about Ossetic language and thorardson's work which references Abaev's work basically contradicts yourpan-turkist theories as does all of Abaev's work.  Before Abaev also there was universal concensus on ossetic language and after the dissolution of USSR Abaev does not have a change of mind and this puts a hole in  your conspiracy theory .   All the western encyclopedias are also objective and contradict your makeup theories.  For someone that does not know Ossetic to go against all scholars that know ossetic is actually ridicolous, but non-scholarly theories belong to your website and not wikipedia.  --alidoostzadeh 02:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * ABAEV IS A SCHOLAR. Barefact 17:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That is right and as you can see he clearly states the basic lexicon of Ossetic is Iranian and Ossetic is an Iranian language in his 1962 work and he starts his 1949 book discussing the Iranian language of Ossetic and you simply ignore 70 pages for just 10 pages where he could be talking about any language. .  --alidoostzadeh 18:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * By deleting the reference page from Abaev book you display that for you he is not a scholar to your liking. Deleting the Abaev's Lexicon page is a vandalic action. Likewise is deleting all other sourced information Barefact 22:34, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Nope you are misquoting and I have shown you disfigured English quotes of Abaev.. Also all of our sources are newer than yours and they are all in English. I have brought quotes from Abaev in his English. You claimed there is not a swadesh list and Ilya Yakubovich said there is.. You claimed Ossetic is an agglutinative language but it is not.  Note the section you are quoting from is talking about both Ossetic and Caucasian languages.. Also you have had one/two of your enteries deleted because of false information. Also Abaev even in his 1949 calls Ossetic Iranian and yet you try to disfigure his words.  Per now, I have brought the newest information on Ossetic (1989) and Encyclopedia Britannica 2006 in English.  Any information contradicting it is either your misquoted translation or obsolete.  If you can find a source that is recent in English to counter the facts of the current article that has been made, then that is something.  Else you should desist from attempting to push POV.  --alidoostzadeh 02:45, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * After all this disputes I decided to make my own research into the problem. I used 100-words Swadesh list to compare Ossetic\Ironian with other languages. I have found that of 100 ossetian words only 80 have *PIE parallels. Same comparison with proto-kartvelian showed 73 common words. But in comparison with *PNC (proto-north-caucasian) I found 94 common words, while semitic showed 93 words. Some of the most basic iranian words, that should have been preserved in this language does not have parallels with iranian, for example word "lag" (man) and "us" (woman). These two words don't correspond to *PIE *mAnw- and *gʷen- but show resemblance to *PNC *ŁiwlV and *c̣_wŏjV, as well as semitic *marʔ- and *nišw-. Othe basic words, like verbs that usually are most stable words and have little chance to be borrowed from other language correspond to *PNC. For example word "wyn-" (to see) corresponds to *PNC *=agwV and *PWC *bA. Indeed this word is quite similar to indo-european form "vid-", however the conclusion of nation's ethnicity and origin is based not only on language but also on a geographical distribution. Thus even if word is similar with *PIE it still can belong to a different family, like caucasian, because it is the closest neighbour and thus the word could came from this neighbour, if it corresponds with a neighbour's language. According to this system the closest relatives of Ironian language is N.C. and W.C. families, then it is Kartvelian, after that the closest neighbour is Indo-European (languages like kurdish, tati, armenian, etc.), and only then Semitic (like aramaic or hebrew). Other oorrespondencies are "x’wys-" (to hear) and *PNC *ẋVc̣V(Ingush. "xoz-"), "fyd" (meat) and *PNC *ẋwɨlʡi. If we take up the simplest words of 100-words swadesh list then we see that they all correspond to caucasian variants. For example "az" (I) - *zō, "dy" (thou) - *źwe, "mah" (we) - *ži (in avarian "niž", in this example last sound consonant is transformed to silent according to scheme "zh-s-x",), "wyi" (that) - *dV\*ʔu, "chi" (who) - *kwi, "tsy" (what) - *s_āj (lak. "tsi"), "agās" (all) - lzghn. "wiri" (in trans. form "WL" - "AWL" - "AWZ"), "bira" (many) - *bVHV. That's only the first 10 words, and all of them already correspond to caucasian parallels. Another interesting thing is a word transformation feature, similar to abkhazian, like wakh. "zebok" (tongue) - iron. "avzag" (tongue). However I doubt that word "avzag" comes from indo-european family, it is quite caucasian word, *PNC *mĕlc̣_i and *PWC *bǝźA. Overall I should say that grammatical features of ossetian\ironian language is too caucasian (agglutanation, lack of prefixes, ejective phonemes, etc.). While I was doing my research I realized that ironian language quite resembles Lak and Lezghin (Legh) languages of South Dagestan. I persume that it is directly related to these languages, the basis of that claim is that it looks quite similar with these two, plus word "lag" (man) which obviously was replaced by semitic "adaymag" ("Adam"), probably was used as the word "person, human" before arrival of christianity and islam. Thus we can say that Ossetic\Ironian language have more common traits with Lezghian and Lak language, rather than east iranian languages like Wakhi, Pashto or Yaghnobi, or west iranian ones like Talyshi or Tati. But it is also possible that Ossetic\Ironian is a North-Caucasian isolate, not related to any particular subfamily of NC languages, maybe like Khinalug language. But from what I know it is quite doubtful that Ossetian\Ironian is iranian language. Iliassh (talk) 00:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * However you left out the other words for Man and Women. Nael "Male" < *Narya (Old Iranian) - Persian nar.  Sil (Iron)/Silae (Female), Avestra: Stri.  Colors, Black  sau "Black", Av. Siiauua Persian Siyah.  Bor "yellow", Persian "Boor".  Digor "Fidae" (Father).  Digoar Madae (Mother), "Zaerda" (Heart, Zazaki > Zird, Pesrian Dil...).  Iron/Digor "daes", Persian dah = 10.  Iron/Digor avd -> Haft (7).  I am sure you know by now WP:FORUM and WP:OR.--Nepaheshgar (talk) 19:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Interesting indeed. However ossetian "nal" (male) has caucasian parallel too, it's *PNC *mōrŁV and proto-Nakh *mār. Old iranian Narya also has many parallels with other languages, like proto-turkic *ēr or proto-dravidian *āḷ-, as well as proto-uralic *mertä. In such situation I see appropriate to rely more on neighbouring languages. With such logic we can claim that turkic langauges are also iranian, take such examples as Av. "Zaire" (yellow) and proto-turkic "*siarɨg" (yellow) or Av. "hwaram" (wound) and proto-turkic "*jara" (wound) plus many more examples. And persian "boor" as well as ossetian "bor" coincides with turkic "boz" (grey) the same way as russian "seryi" (grey) or udmurt "zar" coincides with turkic "sary" (yellow). And Ironian "sau" or "saw" corresponds to proto-lezghian *č̣ulV.I do not claim that these words are borrowed, what I mean is that these words are common between languages and can't be used as a sole instrument of classification of languages, without taking to notice geographical location and neighbours' tongues. Digorian "mada" (mother) coincides with "imada" (mother) from now extinct south samoyedic Koibal language and N. Sami "ǣmest", and "fyda" (father) with Enets. "äđǟ" (father). I must note that such comparison ridicules the whole family of indo-european languages, since nearly all kinship terms of IE languages are present in languages classified as Uralic and North-Caucasian. We also can't claim word "zardā" (heart) to be directly related to Zazaki "Zird" or Persian "Dil", since we have *PNC *jĕrḳwĭ that corresponds to ossetian "zardā" and have more chances to be related to it than Indo-European due to the fact that ossetians geographically closer to NC- and Kartvelian-speaking peoples, rather than Kurdish- or even Armenian-speakers. Plus a variation of ossetian "zardā" is found in many other places on earth, where indo-european is not usually spoken, an example is proto-uralic "*śiđä" or proto-taic "*caɨ"(tsa-eu), as well as proto-dravidian "*gunḍ-" (where soft r was nasalized and became n, i.e. gur'd - gund). Ossetian "das" (10) almost corresponds to it's "reversed" variation in lezghian "c̣u-d", Khinalug "jäʕiz" and perfectly fits into proto-dargwa "*wec̣-". Generally "das" is just a simplified version of *PNC *ʡĕnc̣Ĕ where ʡ (Epiglottal plosive) became d, n was dropped due to denasalization and word shortened, thus we got "dec" and in result "das". Overall simplification of language is probably a result of heavy influence of kartvelian languages (Svan, Mingrelian and Georgian) in my opinion. And what comes to word "avd" (7) it is a correspondence of proto-lezghian *u_irƛ:ɨ- presented in Rutul language as "jiwɨ-d". However I will admit that it could also be a form of proto-kartvelian *šwid- but the presence of sh or s sound in kartvelian version probably means that this form is more distant than Lezghian. Almost every word in Ironian language (at least its Swadesh list) has caucasian or other non-IE correspondance. For example word "nom" (name) has no caucasian correspondance, but it is perfectly iranian. But the funny thing is that extinct south samoyedic Kamass language of Sayan plateu had word "nǝm" for word "name", while it is classified as Samoyedic and I am sure that if it had Swadesh list it would correspond with Selkup language. Words that aren't found in caucasian languages also coincide with Uralic forms, but I do not deny Indo-European correspondances either. The problem that with the iranist logic we can claim the same way taht ossetians are descendants of nomadic magyars, who settled in Caucasus. Why not? Many words correspond to Hungarian forms (like iron. "bax" and hung. "bak" - horse), as far as I know word order in Hungarian language is SVO, I am not sure if it same in Ironian\Digorian, I hope there will be info about that in the article; agglutinative linguistic type and rich phonetics also correspond to Finno-Ugrian, plus presence of two "a" sounds - 'a' and 'ā', same as in Persian, as well as in Hungarian. Let us really think about it, word "fire" (ārt) as far as I know have no caucasian parallels but it resembles proto-Uralic *tule (abkhaz-like transformation (an ossetian feature): tule - utl - alt - art) and proto-Ugric *tüwV (tuwt - awt - art). Now if we take numbers we also see some resemblance: 1 (iron. 'iw' - mari. 'ik'), 2 (iron. 'dywwa' - mansi. 'kitǝw' (dial.), koibal. 'syda'), 3 (iron. 'arta' - mansi. 'ẋūrǝm' (dial.)), 4 (iron. 'tsyppār' - N\A, correspondances in iranian and NC lang-s), 5 (iron. 'fondz' - mari. 'wizǝ̑t' (dial.)), 6 (iron. 'axsaz' - khant. 'kut', est. 'kuus'), 7 (iron. 'āvd' - khant. 'jäwǝt' (dial.), hung. 'hét'), 8 (iron. 'ast' - kld. sami 'kāẋc', hung. 'nyolc'), 9 (iron. 'fārāst'- mari. 'inđeš', *PU *ükteksä). Ofcourse I wouldn't claim that Ironian language is directly related to Ugrian family, but some traits are quite similar which shows that it could undergone some influence from Uralic languages. Which is probably a result of Magyar migration. What I am trying to say that we can't surely say that Ironian and Digorian belong to iranian linguistic family by using only glossary comparison. We must include such factors as neighbouring languages, geographical location, traces of migration presented by toponymy and alien features in language (like names for animals that don't inhabit language's native region, with exception of word borrows). Plus we should not forget soviet science (which is tend to falcifications and in my opinion is barely reliable), which not only tried to find proof of Ironian's iranism but also gone as far as to conclude that Ironians and Digorians are same people (despite big genetical and linguistic differences) as well as a soviet ban on Digorian language, that was claimed to be "counter-revolutionary". A. A. Chechenov claimed that the whole territory of Eurasian steppes was inhabitted by obscure "iranian-speaking" population that undergone such heavy turkification that left no traces of them at all, despite the fact that in the officially recognized homeland (Urheimat) of turkic peoples (Area between Mongolia, Buryatia and NE China, along the Amur river) there are no turkic-speakers at all and it is highly doubtful that they ever lived there. There are so few turkic-speaking peoples in East and North Asia that it is extremely doubtful that turkic peoples' origin is Asian at all. Genetic evidence, particulary mtDNA shows that even among Yakut people there are haplogroups alien to Asia, such as H. And anthropologically Shorians and Tofalar possess parallel caucasoid\siberian type, similar to Bashkir people, which is somehow not common among neighbouring Evenks and Buryats, who lived near them for a long period of time, if they have been influenced by indo-iranians, then these indo-iranians should've also leave their genetic trace among neighbouring mongolic and tungusic population, but it is not as obvious among them as among turkic-speaking folks. But let's leave that for other discussion. What comes to Ironian language, a known ironian researcher V. I. Abayev found 200 iranian words in Ironian language, while M. A. Habichev found 900 iranian words, but G. Derfer's 4 tome work "Turkic and Mongolic elements in New Persian language" showed that most of these words are of turkic origin.(information from N. Budayev's book "Western turks in countries of the East). Thus I would not recommend relying on work of Abayev or other soviet researchers, who worked to satisfy state's orders. Iliassh (talk) 08:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Basing on your arguments I can say that English language is a Romance language due to the Norman/French influence. So, please refrain from making OR. — Taamu (talk) 11:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Bor/Boor (Persian, Ossetian) is not gray it is yellow/blond and there is no similarly with Gray (Boz) in Turkish. Gray and Yellow as far as I know are fairly distinguished colors.  Ossetian "das"(ten) is from the same root as  Persian "dah" and Avesta "dasa".  It is fairly imaginative to connect "das" to the Lezgin  "cu-d". Doefoer's 4 volume work has about 2300 Altaic words which are mainly names, military titles, state positions and etc in Persian texts and have no relationship with Ironian/Ossetian languages.  Most of these words are from Ghaznavids to Qajar era appeaing in Persian text, but approximately maybe at most 5% of these words are used in modern Persian and they are not even basic words (that is Persian equivalent exists for all of them).    On Ossetian, even in 1850, its  Iranian character was recognized..before Abaev or USSR era.   Remember this is not a WP:Forum and if you think Western scholars and Russian scholars are wrong, you can publish a journal article trying to prove they are wrong and once your opinion is accepted as the scholarly standard in the world (say Britannica, Encyclopedias on languages and etc. mention it and all the Professors in the world agree), then feel free to edit wikipedia with these theories.  --Nepaheshgar (talk) 14:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, but why won't we cite sources, which are critical to the claims that ossetians are descendants of alans? Or about the whole idea of ossetians' iranism? Information in this article is based on soviet iranist theory whithout mention of it's criticism. I must admit I've made mistake, N. Budayev's book was talking about turkic words in ossetian, which were claimed by Abayev to come from ossetian to turkic, statement like that was made to proove that ossetians were alans. Among common words between persian and turkic there are words from Swadesh list as well. I should mention though that due to linguistic similarities ossetian swadesh list is 80% IE, 87% Finno-Ugric and 94% North-Caucasian. Words like "bozorg" and "kuchik" fairly well fit in more simplified turkic "ulug" and "kishi", word "xun" (blood) is same as turkic "qan" (blood). I am sure that word "blood" is very common in any language. Persian "barg" (leaf) and turkic "bür" (leaf, bud). Persian verb "baladān" (to know how, to can) is pretty same as turkic verb "bilu" (to know). Not to mention turkic word "adaq" (foot, leg) and it's similar sanskrit form "padah", why so similar? Because in parallel form word turkic "adaq" were "padax", it can't be borrowed, because it is common word, and thus it is common word between indo-aryan sanskrit and turkic, the same way as proto-uralic "*nisV" (woman) is similar with proto-semitic "*nišw-" (woman). I am saying that simple word comparison is not enough to classify a language. Even if we take Avestan "dasa" we will see a parallel with Svan "ješd", but we won't classify this Caucasian language as iranian because we know that it is kartvelian by nature. There are many sources that can be cited in this article which disapprove classification of ossetian as iranian language. But I am sure that when someone will try to cite them in this

article his or her changes will be discarded and all will go back to old stalinist theories. Iliassh (talk) 06:09, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ossetian is an Iranian language. And you don't seem to understand how a Swadesh list works.  The numbers must total 100%, so it's impossible to have 80% IE, 87% Finno-Ugric, and 94% North Caucasian.  It's also not about borrowed words from Turkic or Caucasian languages.  It's determined by regular sound correspondences in core vocabulary.  Your similar vocabulary falls completely flat on a linguist's ears and proves nothing besides some borrowed vocabulary.  Only regular sound correspondences matter, for example, the deaspiration in Iranian languages (including Ossetic) of the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirates.  Cognate forms with English include Ossetic tʰajɨn/English thaw, qug (Iron)/cow, xʷɨ (Iron)/farrow, dɨvænd 'vacillating'/two, mizd 'payment'/mead, itinʒ-un (Digor) 'stretch'/thin, tʃiɣd/cheese, xʷæræ (Digor)/sister, etc.  All these are related by regular sound correspondences from Proto-Indo-European.  The only way to explain this relationship with English is by inheritance from the common ancestor--English through Proto-Germanic to Proto-Indo-European and Ossetic through Proto-Indo-Iranian to Proto-Indo-European.  This is not really debated by any serious historical linguists (see, for example, David Testen, "Ossetic Phonology," Phonologies of Asia and Africa, Volume II, pp. 707-731.  There is a good bibliography there attesting to the descent of Ossetic from Proto-Indo-European.  Any theory that Ossetic is not Indo-European is WP:FRINGE and will be reverted because it is not supported by solid historical linguistic evidence from the last 150 years of study.  (Taivo (talk) 07:37, 28 June 2009 (UTC))
 * And one further note. It doesn't matter who the Ossetians are genetically descended from.  This article is about their language not their DNA.  Their language is descended from Proto-Iranian.  (Taivo (talk) 07:39, 28 June 2009 (UTC))


 * Thanks Taivo. It is indeed not even fringe.  The sources that he claims critical are all nationalistic nation-building non-academic sources, written mainly by nationalists who cannot accept standard Western Encyclopedias and are out there to build a "glorious" history.  For example we do not see any doubt in Encyclopedia Britannica or standard books on Iranian linguistics on Ossetian.  We can see some countries (former USSR countries) that have been relatively formed recently  are not happy with the cause and effect events of history and are out there to build themselves a history.  Doerfer has some etymologies wrong as well as do any other etymologist (say Abaev), but their overall work is taken positively and used by the scientific community.  Budayev or etc. are not reliable sources.  If you need further assistant on Ossetian language I recommend you read the article by Thordarson .  The "balad" in Persian is actually an Arabic loan word.  Bozorg on the other hand is Persian as its Old Persian is Varzraka.  The pure Persian equivalent if you will for these words are "Danestan" (balad) and "riz, Khord".  Kuchak can have two different hypothesis.  One is a Turkic loan word but the other one is simple dialect change from Persian Kudak (Pahlavi Kudak) meaning "kid".  Either way, there is a new book on Iranian languages by Windfuhr to be published in August 2009 which will be the standard reference.  For now, it is the book of Schmitt: "Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum".  --Nepaheshgar (talk) 23:30, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you Nipaheshgar. I have a copy of Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, but just didn't feel like getting up to go to the other room to get it when I wrote the comment above.  Like you, I am eagerly awaiting the publication of Windfuhr's volume.  I've been looking at Amazon.com monthly for the last three or four years since it was first announced.  (Taivo (talk) 00:15, 29 June 2009 (UTC))

Italics in Cyrillics
A guideline on whether or not to italicize Cyrillics (and all scripts other than Latin) is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting). - - Evv 16:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Why not convert it to standard latin? --alidoostzadeh 20:17, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Greek translation
I corrected the Greek translation, inserting the right words -- even though they are rather obscene. I see no point in "filtering" translations for scholarly reasons. 201.81.190.154 11:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Since this user isn't active, could someone else verify the translation? I agree that bowdlerization may be inappropriate, but would like to make certain that the wording is necessary. Note that the Alanic-Ossetian appears less bold. Otherwise readers may keep flagging it as vandalism. Cwilsyn (talk) 07:45, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I italicized the Alanic part to show which parts were Greek, and which Alanic (I believe this was done also in my source, but I can't check it now because I can no longer access JSTOR). Yes, the Greek literally translates as something less-than-polite, but then we are mingling "official" and unofficial translations without citing them... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpbrenna (talk • contribs) 13:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The "obscene" translation is indeed correct, except for being rendered in the passive ("fucked by") rather than the active voice used in the Greek text. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· (talk) 13:37, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

The Descent of (Ossetian) Man
ossetians and alans are not desedents of scythians they are regular cacasus people being mixed with iranians and cacusians.scythians languge are more like indias punjabis or in other case if they spoke a iranian languege at all wich no one khows for sure but they could have been turanic peoples that had similar languge to mongols.
 * Do you have any source that could prove your POV? There shouldn’t be any such things as "Ossetians could have been..." or "if they spoke..." Thanks. Taamu (talk) 07:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Garbled text?
Under Ossetic language, the modern Ossetic text "Dć bon xwarz, me’fšini ‘xšinć, kurdigćj dć?" and "(De’) f(s)arm neč(ij), kinźi œfšini xœcc(œ) (ku) fœwwa sawgin" seems like it may be garbled, since according to the article the language doesn't use ć, œ, w, or ź but does frequently use ӕ. Maybe some issue with converting between different computer character sets? At any rate, it seems to require some explanation or correction. —KCinDC (talk) 04:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not garbled, it's some sort of phonetic transcription. It's quite easy to presume, but it would constitute original research if I tried to convert it to IPA, I guess. Rsazevedo msg 00:02, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

20% of Ossetic Speakers in S. Ossetia?
The article claims 700,00o Ossetic speakers, of which 20% are located in South Ossetia. Given that esitmates of South Ossetia's population are generally aorund the 70,000 mark, of whom at least some are Georgian speakers, this proportion seems somwhat inaccurate. I noticed that this remark was lacking a citation - does anyone have some more accurate inforamtion? Should should this remark be corrected (to say, for example, "with around 10% or less located in South Ossetia"), or simply excied?

Drobba (talk) 13:00, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Good spot. Rounded down to 10%, for now, whilst still in discussion; more in line with existing population stats. Other Ossetian speakers elsewhere in Georgia, as well as elsewhere not listed, but citation would still be useful for more in-depth number crunching if possible. Regards, David. Harami2000 (talk) 16:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)