Language
The Ossetic language belongs to the Northeastern Iranian branch of Indo-European language family.
Ossetic is divided into two main dialect groups: Ironian (os. - Ирон) in North and South Ossetia and Digorian (os. - Дыгурон) of western North Ossetia. There are some subdialects in those two: like Tualian, Alagirian, Ksanian, etc. The Ironian dialect is the most widely spoken.
Ossetic is among the remnants of the Scytho-Sarmatian dialect group which was once spoken across Central Asia. Other surviving languages closely related to Ossetic are Yaghnobi, Pashto and Pamiri languages, all spoken more than 2,000 km to the east in Afghanistan and some parts of Tajikistan and northwestern Pakistan.
Read more about this topic: Ossetians
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