Ossetian language in the context of "Eastern Iranian"

Arabic has had a great influence on other languages, especially in vocabulary. The influence of Arabic has been most profound in those countries visited by Islam or Islamic power.

Arabic loanwords have made into many languages as diverse as Abkhaz, Afrikaans, Amharic, Albanian, Armenian, Assyrian, Azerbaijani, Balochi, Bengali, Berber, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chechen, Circassian, Croatian, English, French, Georgian, Greek, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Kazakh, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Malay, Mongolian, Montenegrin, Nepali, Odia, Ossetian, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romani, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sicilian, Spanish, Sindhi, Somali, Swahili, Tagalog, Tajik, Tatar, Tigrinya, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Visayan, Wolof, Xhosa, Yoruba, Zulu, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken. Other languages such as Maltese and Nubi derive from Arabic, rather than merely borrowing vocabulary. Arabic words were being used from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to Maritime Southeast Asia prior to the spread of European international words.

North Ossetia–Alania (Russian: Северная Осетия, romanized: Severnaya Osetiya; Ossetian: Цæгат Ирыстон/Иристон, romanized: Cægat Iryston/Iriston), officially the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania, is a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe. It borders the country of Georgia (South Ossetia) to the south, and the Russian federal subjects of Kabardino-Balkaria to the west, Stavropol Krai to the north, Chechnya to the east and Ingushetia to the southeast. Its population according to the 2021 Census was 687,357. The republic’s capital city is Vladikavkaz, located on the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains.

The majority of the republic's population (68.1% as of 2021) are Ossetians, an Iranian ethnic group native to the republic and neighboring South Ossetia. Ossetian is an east Iranian language descended from the medieval Alanic and ancient Sarmatian languages. Unlike many ethnic groups in the North Caucasus, the majority of Ossetians are Christians, predominantly Eastern Orthodox. Almost 30% of the population adheres to Ossetian ethnic religion, generally called Uatsdin (Уацдин, "True Faith"), and there is a sizable Muslim minority. Ethnic Russians and Ingush, who form a majority in neighboring Ingushetia, form substantial minorities in the republic.

Proto-Iranian or Proto-Iranic is the reconstructed proto-language of the Iranian languages branch of Indo-European language family and thus the ancestor of the Iranian languages such as Persian, Pashto, Sogdian, Zazaki, Ossetian, Mazandarani, Kurdish, Talysh and others. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the 2nd millennium BC and are usually connected with the Andronovo archaeological horizon (see Indo-Iranians).

Proto-Iranian was a satem language descended from the Proto-Indo-Iranian language, which in turn, came from the Proto-Indo-European language. It was likely removed less than a millennium from the Avestan language, and less than two millennia from Proto-Indo-European.

The Scythian languages (/ˈsɪθiən/ or /ˈsɪðiən/ or /ˈskɪθiən/) are a group of Eastern Iranic languages of the classical and late antique period (the Middle Iranic period), spoken in a vast region of Eurasia by the populations belonging to the Scythian cultures and their descendants. The dominant ethnic groups among the Scythian-speakers were nomadic pastoralists of Central Asia and the Pontic–Caspian steppe. Fragments of their speech known from inscriptions and words quoted in ancient authors as well as analysis of their names indicate that it was an Indo-European language, more specifically from the Iranic group of Indo-Iranic languages.

Most of the Scythian languages eventually became extinct, except for modern Ossetian (which descends from the Alanic dialect of Scytho-Sarmatian) and Wakhi (which descends from the Khotanese and Tumshuqese forms of Scytho-Khotanese). Alexander Lubotsky summarizes the known linguistic landscape as follows:

The Eastern Iranian languages or Eastern Iranic languages are an areal subgroup of the Iranian languages, having emerged during the Middle Iranian era (4th century BC to 9th century AD). The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. As opposed to the Middle-era Western Iranian dialects, the Middle-era Eastern Iranian dialects preserve word-final syllables.

The largest living Eastern Iranian language is Pashto, with 40 to 60 million speakers between the Amu River in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan. The second-largest living Eastern Iranian language is Ossetic, with roughly 600,000 speakers across Ossetia (split between Georgia and Russia). All other languages of the Eastern Iranian subgroup have fewer than 200,000 speakers combined.

The Ossetians (/ɒˈsiːʃənz/ oss-EE-shənz or /ɒˈsɛtiənz/ oss-ET-ee-ənz; Ossetian: ир, ирæттæ / дигорӕ, дигорӕнттӕ, romanized: ir, irættæ / digoræ, digorænttæ), also known as Ossetes (/ˈɒsiːts/ OSS-eets), Ossets (/ˈɒsɪts/ OSS-its), and Alans (/ˈælənz/ AL-ənz), 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 Ossetian, an Eastern Iranian language of the Indo-European language family, with most also being fluent in Russian as a second language.

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 within the northwestern part of the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County in Hungary. A third group descended from the medieval Alans are the Asud of Mongolia. Both the Jász and the Asud have long been assimilated; only the Ossetians have preserved a form of the Alanic language and Alanian identity.