Phonology
Ossetic has 7 vowels:
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | и /i/ | ы /ɨ/ | у /u/ |
Mid | е /e/ | æ ə | о /o/ |
Open | а /a/ |
Ossetian researcher V.I. Abaev distinguishes 26 consonants, to which five labialized consonants and two semivowels may be added. Unusually for an Indo-European language, there is a series of glottalized (ejective) stops and affricates. This can be considered an areal feature of languages of the Caucasus.
Labial | Dental/ alveolar |
Postalveolar /palatal |
Velar | Uvular | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Stops | б /b/ | д /d/ | г /ɡ/ | гу /ɡʷ/ | ||||
п /p/ | т /t/ | к /k/ | ку /kʷ/ | хъ /q/ | хъу /qʷ/ | |||
пъ /pʼ/ | тъ /tʼ/ | къ /kʼ/ | къу /kʷʼ/ | |||||
Affricates | дз /dz/ | дж /dʒ/ | ||||||
ц /ts/ | ч /tʃ/ | |||||||
цъ /tsʼ/ | чъ /tʃʼ/ | |||||||
Fricatives | в /v/ | з /z/ | гъ /ʁ/ | |||||
ф /f/ | с /s/ | х /χ/ | ху /χʷ/ | |||||
Nasals | м /m/ | н /n/ | ||||||
Lateral | л /l/ | |||||||
Rhotic | р /r/ | |||||||
Approximants | й /j/ | у /w/ |
The phonetic realization of /s/ and /z/ varies between, and, . Voiceless consonants become voiced word-medially (this is reflected in the orthography as well). /tʃ/, /dʒ/, and /tʃʼ/ were originally allophones of /k/, /ɡ/, and /kʼ/ when followed by /e/, /i/ and /ɨ/; this alternation is still retained to a large extent.
Stress normally falls on the first syllable, unless it has a "weak" vowel (/ə/ or /ɨ/), in which case it falls on the second syllable. In the Iron dialect, definiteness is expressed in post-initially stressed words by shifting the stress to the initial syllable. 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.
Read more about this topic: Ossetic Language