From the 7th–8th centuries BCE, the languages of the Iranian group were distributed across a vast territory spanning present-day Iran (Persia), Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus.

[9][10] Ossetian has a plural formed by the suffix -ta, a feature it shares with Yaghnobi, Sarmatian and the now-extinct Sogdian; this is taken as evidence of a formerly wide-ranging Iranian-language dialect continuum on the Central Asian steppe.

"[11]: 55–56 The only other extant record of Proto-Ossetic are the two lines of "Alanic" phrases appearing in the Theogony of John Tzetzes, a 12th century Byzantine poet and grammarian: Τοῖς ἀλανοῖς προσφθέγγομαι κατὰ τὴν τούτων γλῶσσανΚαλὴ ἡμέρα σου αὐθέντα μου ἀρχόντισσα πόθεν εἶσαιΤαπαγχὰς μέσφιλι χσινὰ κορθὶ κάντα καὶ τἄλλαἂν δ' ἔχῃ ἀλάνισσα παπᾶν φίλον: ἀκούσαις ταῦταοὐκ αἰσχύνεσαι αὐθέντρια μου νὰ γαμῇ τὸ μουνίν σου παπᾶςτὸ φάρνετζ κίντζι μέσφιλι καὶτζ φουὰ σαοῦγγε[11]: 54 [12]The portions in bold face above are Ossetian.

[14] It is theorized that during the Proto-Ossetic phase, Ossetian underwent a process of phonological change conditioned by a Rhythmusgesetz or "Rhythm-law" whereby nouns were divided into two classes, those heavily or lightly stressed[clarification needed].

There are two daily newspapers in Ossetian: Ræstdzinad (Рӕстдзинад / Рӕстꚉінад, "Truth") in the North and Xurzærin (Хурзӕрин, "The Sun") in the South.

There is a monthly magazine Max dug (Мах дуг, "Our era"), mostly devoted to contemporary Ossetian fiction and poetry.

The first modern translation of the Qur'an into Ossetic took place in 2007, initiated by an Ossetian Robert Bolloev, who at that time resided in St.

Unlike all of its neighbouring languages, Ossetian largely lacks the original distinction of postalveolar /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ from the respective alveolar sibilants /s/ and /z/ (due to the early merger of Old Iranian *s/*š and *z/*ž).

This reflects the fact that historically they received a syllabic definite article (as they still do in the Digor dialect), and the addition of the syllable caused the stress to shift.

Not only compound verbs, but also every noun phrase constitutes such a group containing only one stressed syllable, regardless of its length, for instance мӕ чи́ныг/mӕ čínyg /mɐˈt͡ʃinɘg/ 'my book', мӕгуы́р зӕронд лӕг/mægwýr zærond læg /mɐˈgwɘr zɐrond lɐg/ 'a poor old man'.

The first Ossetian book was published in Cyrillic in 1798, and in 1844 the alphabet was revised by a Russian scientist of Finland-Swedish origin, Andreas Sjögren.

According to V. I. Abaev,[9] In the course of centuries-long propinquity to and intercourse with Caucasian languages, Ossetian became similar to them in some features, particularly in phonetics and lexicon.

A svarabhakti vowel ы y is normally inserted after stems ending in a cluster (цӕст cӕst 'eye' – цӕстытӕ cӕstytӕ 'eyes'), but there are also numerous exceptions from this.

This insertion of ы y regularly palatalises preceding velars to affricates in Iron: чызг čyzg 'girl' – чызджытӕ čyzdžytӕ 'girls'.

In words ending in -ӕг ӕg, the vowel is usually elided in the plural, making the stem eligible for the above-mentioned svarabhakti insertion: барӕг barӕg 'rider' – барджытӕ bardžytӕ 'riders'.

[33] Nouns and adjectives share the same morphology and distinguish two numbers (singular and plural) and nine cases: nominative, genitive, dative, directive, ablative, inessive, adessive, equative, and comitative.

[37] Verbs distinguish six persons (1st, 2nd and 3rd, singular and plural), three tenses (present, past and future, all expressed synthetically), three moods (indicative, subjunctive, imperative), and belong to one of two grammatical aspects (perfective and imperfective).

The past stem commonly differs from the present stem by adding т t or д d (e.g. дар- dar- : дард- dard- 'to hold'; уарз- warz : уарзт warzt 'to love'), or, more rarely, -ст -st (e.g. бар- bar : барст- barst 'weigh') or -ыд yd (зар- zar- : зарыд- zaryd- 'sing'; nonetheless, the past participle of this type is still formed with -д/т t/d: зард- zard-).

Frequent consonant changes are -д d, -т t, -тт tt, -нд nd, -нт nt > -ст st (e.g. кӕрд- kӕrd- : карст karst 'cut'), -дз dz, -ц -c, -ндз -ndz, -нц -nc > -гъд hd (лидз- lidz- : лыгъд- lyhd- 'run away'), elision of a final н n or м m (e.g. нӕм nӕm : над nad).

[38] It is also seen in the copula, whose past stem is уыд- wyd-, whereas the present forms are highly irregular and begin in д- d-, ст- st- оr in a vowel (see below).

There are also many related transitive-intransitive verb pairs, which also differ by means of a vowel alternation (commonly а a : ӕ ӕ, e.g. сафын safyn 'lose' : сӕфын sӕfyn 'be lost', and у u : уы wy, e.g. хъусын qusyn 'hear' : хъуысын qwysyn 'be heard') and sometimes by the addition of the consonant -с s (тавын tavyn 'to warm' : тафсын tæfsyn 'to be warm').

The future tense forms consist of the present stem, the element -дзы(н)- ~ -дзӕн- -dzy(n)- ~ -dzæn- (originally a separate root meaning 'wish' according to Fredrik Thordarson) and endings which appear to derive from encliticised copula уын uyn 'be' (see above table) used as an auxiliary.

Passive voice is expressed periphrastically with the past passive participle and an auxiliary verb цӕуын cӕwyn 'to go': аразын arazyn 'build' – арӕзт цӕуын arӕzt cӕwyn 'be built'; causative meaning is also expressed periphrastically by combining the infinitive and the verb кӕнын kӕnyn 'to do': e.g. бадын badyn 'to sit' – бадын кӕнын badyn kænyn 'to seat'.

[44] A morphophonological peculiarity of the prefixes is that when they are added to roots beginning in the vowel а a, as well as to the copula's form ис is, the consonant ц c is epenthesised: фӕ-ц-ис fӕ-c-is 'became (3rd person)'.

To make a prefixed form receive imperfective meaning, the article цӕй cӕj is inserted: рацӕйцыди racӕjcydi 'he was going out'.

The dedicated active participles in -ӕг -ӕg and receive 'present' or 'past', or more accurately, imperfective or perfective meaning depending on the aspect of the stem: фыссӕг fyssӕg 'writing' – ныффыссӕг nyffyssæg 'having written'.

To receive an unambiguously adverbial, i.e. gerundial interpretation, it needs to be declined in the ablative case, as does an adjective: бадгӕйӕ badgӕjӕ '(while) sitting'.

[48] There are also verbal nouns: one derived from the present stem with the suffix -ӕн -ӕn with the meaning 'fit to be X-ed' – e.g. зын ссарӕн zyn ssarӕn 'hard to find' – and one in -аг -ag denoting permanent quality – e.g. нуазаг nwazag 'drunkard'.

The decimal one is said to have been used in pre-modern times by shepherds who had borrowed it from the Balkars, but it came into more general use only after its introduction in Ossetian schools in 1925 to facilitate the teaching of arithmetic.

An additional difference is that the decimal system places tens before units (35 is ӕртын фондз ærtyn fondz '30 + 5'), whereas the vigesimal uses the opposite order (35 is фынддӕс ӕмӕ сӕндз fynddæs æmæ ssædz '15 + 20').