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Ossetian Culture
Ossetian culture includes a range of rituals, customs and language distinctions specific to the same-name region, Ossetia, in the Caucasus, divided between Russia and Georgia, and inhabited primarily by the Ossetians, an Iranian ethnic group. The Ossetian culture combines traces of ancient Iranian, Scythian, and Caucasian traditions. Language Ossetians speak Ossetian, an Eastern Iranian language, which has two major dialects: Digor and Iron. The written form of Ossetian is based on the Cyrillic alphabet, with additional characters to represent unique Ossetian sounds. Ossetian literature dates back to the 18th century, and prominent authors include Kosta Khetagurov and Nart Sagalayev. Religion The majority of Ossetians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which was introduced to the region in the 10th century. Before the spread of Christianity, Ossetians practiced indigenous religions with elements of Zoroastrianism, Tengrism, and Scythian beliefs. The pre-Ch ...
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Ossetia
Ossetia ( , ; os, Ирыстон or , or ; russian: Осетия, Osetiya; ka, ოსეთი, translit. ''Oseti'') is an ethnolinguistic region located on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, largely inhabited by the Ossetians. The Ossetian language is part of the Eastern Iranian branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Most countries recognize the Ossetian-speaking area south of the main Caucasus ridge as lying within the borders of Georgia, but it has come under the control of the ''de facto'' government of the Russian-backed Republic of South Ossetia – the State of Alania. The northern portion of the region consists of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania within the Russian Federation. Recent history * 1774 — North Ossetia becomes part of the Russian Empire. * 1922 — Creation of the South Ossetian autonomous oblast. North Ossetia remains a part of Russian SFSR, South Ossetia remains a part of Georgian SSR. * 20 September 1990 — South Osse ...
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Ossetians
The Ossetians or Ossetes (, ; os, ир, ирæттæ / дигорӕ, дигорӕнттӕ, translit= ir, irættæ / digoræ, digorænttæ, label=Ossetic) are an Iranian ethnic group who are indigenous to Ossetia, a region situated across the northern and southern sides of the Caucasus Mountains. They natively speak Ossetic, an Eastern Iranian language of the Indo-European language family, with most also being fluent in Russian as a second language. Ossetic, a remnant of the Scytho-Sarmatian dialect group which was once spoken across the Pontic–Caspian Steppe, is one of the few Iranian languages remaining inside Europe. Currently, the Ossetian homeland of Ossetia is politically divided between North Ossetia–Alania in Russia, and the ''de facto'' country of South Ossetia (recognized by the United Nations as Russian-occupied territory that is ''de jure'' part of Georgia). Their closest historical and linguistic relatives, the Jász people, live in the Jászság region withi ...
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Iranian Peoples
The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of Indo-European peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities. The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia around the mid-2nd millennium BC. At their peak of expansion in the mid-1st millennium BC, the territory of the Iranian peoples stretched across the entire Eurasian Steppe, from the Great Hungarian Plain in the west to the Ordos Plateau in the east and the Iranian Plateau in the south.: "From the first millennium b.c., we have abundant historical, archaeological and linguistic sources for the location of the territory inhabited by the Iranian peoples. In this period the territory of the northern Iranians, they being equestrian nomads, extended over the whole zone of the steppes and the wooded steppes and even the semi-deserts from the Great Hungarian Plain to the Ordos in northern China." The ...
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Ossetian Language
Ossetian (, , ), commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete (), is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken predominantly in Ossetia, a region situated on both sides of the Greater Caucasus. It is the native language of the Ossetian people, and is one of the few Iranian languages spoken in Europe; it is a relative and possibly a descendant of the extinct Scythian, Sarmatian, and Alanic languages. The northern half of the Ossetia region is part of Russia and is known as North Ossetia–Alania, while the southern half is part of the ''de facto'' country of South Ossetia (recognized by the United Nations as Russian-occupied territory that is ''de jure'' part of Georgia). Ossetian-speakers number about 614,350, with 451,000 recorded in Russia per the 2010 Russian census. History and classification Ossetian is the spoken and literary language of the Ossetians, an Iranian ethnic group living in the central part of the Caucasus and constituting the basic population of ...
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Eastern Iranian Languages
The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from c. the 4th century BC). The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. As opposed to the Middle Western Iranian dialects, the Middle Eastern Iranian preserves word-final syllables. The largest living Eastern Iranian language is Pashto, with some 40-60 million speakers between the Oxus River in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan. The second-largest language is Ossetic language, Ossetic with roughly 600,000 speakers. All other languages have fewer than 200,000 speakers combined. Most living Eastern Iranian languages are spoken in a contiguous area, in southern and eastern Afghanistan as well as the adjacent parts of western Pakistan, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province of eastern Tajikistan, and the far west of Xinjiang Autonomous regions of China, region of China. There are also two living members in widely separated areas: the Yaghnobi langua ...
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Iranian Languages
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are grouped in three stages: Old Iranian (until 400 BCE), Middle Iranian (400 BCE–900 CE) and New Iranian (since 900 CE). The two directly-attested Old Iranian languages are Old Persian (from the Achaemenid Empire) and Old Avestan (the language of the Avesta). Of the Middle Iranian languages, the better understood and recorded ones are Middle Persian (from the Sasanian Empire), Parthian (from the Parthian Empire), and Bactrian (from the Kushan and Hephthalite empires). , there were an estimated 150–200 million native speakers of the Iranian languages. '' Ethnologue'' estimates that there are 86 languages in the group, with the largest among them being Persian (Farsi, Dari, and Tajik dialects), Pashto, Kurdish, Luri, and Balochi. Terminol ...
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Digor People
The Digor (Digor dialect: Дигорон - ''Digoron'', ''pl.'': Дигорӕ, Дигорӕнттӕ - ''Digoræ'', ''Digorænttæ'') are a subgroup of the Ossetians. They speak the Digor dialect of the Eastern Iranian Ossetian language, which in USSR was considered a separate language until 1937. Starting from 1932 it is considered just a dialect of Ossetian language. The speakers of the other dialect - Iron - do not understand Digor, although the Digor usually understand Iron, as it was the official language of the Ossetian people and officially taught in schools. In the 2002 Russian Census 607 Digors were registered, but in the 2010 Russian Census their number was only 223. It was estimated that there are 100,000 speakers of the dialect, most of whom declared themselves Ossetians. The Digor mainly live in Digorsky, Irafsky, Mozdoksky districts and Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia–Alania, also in Kabardino-Balkaria, Turkey and Syria. Name Scholars generally link the root ''di ...
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Iron Ossetian
Iron ( Ossetic: Ирон, ''Iron'' or Ирон ӕвзаг, ''Iron evzag'') is one of the two main dialects of the Ossetic language along with DigorThordarson, Fridrik. 1989. Ossetic. Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, ed. by Rudiger Schmitt, 456-79. Wiesbaden: Reichert/ref> spoken in the Caucasus. The majority of Ossetians speak Iron, notably in the East, South and Central parts of North Ossetia–Alania The Republic of North Ossetia–Alania; os, Республикӕ Цӕгат Ирыстон — Алани, ''Respublikæ Cægat Iryston — Alani'', ) is a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe. Its population acco ..., while in the West the Digor dialect is more prevalent. The Iron dialect has been the basis of the Ossetian written language since the abolition of the Digor standard in 1939. See also * Iron people Notes Ossetia Eastern Iranian languages Languages of Russia Ossetian language {{Iranian languages ...
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Cyrillic Script
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, Caucasian languages, Caucasian and Iranian languages, Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Asia, and East Asia. , around 250 million people in Eurasia use Cyrillic as the official script for their national languages, with Russia accounting for about half of them. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin script, Latin and Greek alphabet, Greek alphabets. The Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire during the reign of tsar Simeon I of Bulgar ...
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Kosta Khetagurov
Konstantin (Kosta) Khetagkaty ( Ossetian: Хетӕгкаты Леуаны фырт Къоста, – ) was a national poet of the Ossetian people who is generally regarded as the founder of Ossetian literature. He was also a talented painter and a notable public benefactor. He is often known by the Russian version of his name, Kosta evanovichKhetagurov (russian: Коста́ (Константин) Лева́нович Хетагу́ров) Khetagurov was born in the village of Nar in what is now Alagirsky District in the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania. He studied at the Stavropol Gymnasium from 1871 to 1881, and entered the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1881, but had to abandon his studies due to financial constraint in 1885. Back in his native Ossetia, he became a prominent poet, whose poems composed in Ossetic quickly spread throughout Ossetian towns and villages in an oral form. He also published a number of poems, stories and articles in the Russian-language ...
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Nart Sagalayev
The Nart sagas ( Abkhaz: Нарҭаа ражәабжьқәа; ''Nartaa raƶuabƶkua''; ady, Нарт тхыдэжъхэр, translit=Nart txıdəĵxər; os, Нарты кадджытæ; ''Narty kaddžytæ''; ''Nartı kadjıtæ'') are a series of tales originating from the North Caucasus. They form much of the basic mythology of the ethnic groups in the area, including Abazin, Abkhaz, Circassian, Ossetian, Karachay-Balkar, and to some extent Chechen-Ingush folklore. Etymology The term ''nart'' comes from the Ossetian ''Nartæ'', which is '' plurale tantum'' of ''nar''. The derivation of the root ''nar'' is of Iranian origin, from Proto-Iranian ''*nar'' for 'hero, man', descended from Proto-Indo-European '' *h₂nḗr''. In Ingush and Chechen, the word ''nart'' means 'giant'. Characters Some of the characters who feature prominently in the sagas are: * Sosruko ( Ubykh, Abkhaz and Adyghe: ''sawsərəqʷa'' (Саусырыкъо); Ossetian: ''Soslan'' (Сослан) ...
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Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religions, Iranian religion and one of the world's History of religion, oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian peoples, Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a Dualism in cosmology, dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a Monotheism, monotheistic ontology and an eschatology which predicts the ultimate conquest of evil by good. Zoroastrianism exalts an uncreated and benevolent deity of wisdom known as ''Ahura Mazda'' () as its supreme being. Historically, the unique features of Zoroastrianism, such as its monotheism, messianism, belief in Free will in theology, free will and Judgement (afterlife), judgement after death, conception of heaven, hell, Angel, angels, and Demon, demons, among other concepts, may have influenced other religious and philosophical systems, including the Abrahamic religions and Gnosticism, Southern, Eastern and Northern Buddhism, Northern Buddhism, and Ancient Greek philosoph ...
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