Ossetic

Ossetic is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken in Ossetia, a region on the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains. It is a descendant of the Proto-Kartvelian language, and is thus related to Georgian and Svan. Ossetic has two main dialects, Iron and Digor, which are named after the villages where they are spoken. The Iron dialect is the more conservative of the two, and is spoken in the southern part of Ossetia. The Digor dialect, on the other hand, is spoken in the north and is considered to be the more progressive of the two. Ossetic is written using a version of the Georgian alphabet, with some additional characters to represent sounds unique to the language. The Ossetic alphabet was created in the 18th century by a man named Mamuka Tsereteli. Ossetic is spoken by around 500,000 people, most of whom live in Ossetia. However, there are also speakers of the language in Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey.