A Phonetic Study of Western Ossetic (Digoron)

Abstract

THIS paper is the outcome of a short study of the pronunciation of an Ossete born in Dzaeusegi-hseu (Wladikavkaz). The Digoron dialect of Ossetic is my informant's mother tongue, but as he left his homeland more than twenty years ago and has in the interval probably had more occasion to speak Kussian and Polish than his own language, the possibility that his pronunciation has been thereby affected cannot be discounted. At the suggestion of Professor H. W. Bailey a short investigation of his pronunciation of Ossetic was undertaken. Some of the material used was taken from notes put at my disposal by Professor Bailey, to whom I am greatly indebted for his generous help and for much invaluable information and criticism. Other material was found in a collection of folk-stories, the Pamyatniki narodnogo tvorchestva Osetin, or was supplied by my informant himself. The tentative nature of any linguistic analysis based on a short study of the pronunciation of one speaker is obvious, and it will be understood that the findings are only valid within these limitations.The typographical conventions adopted in this paper are as follows:—Italic type is used to show the roman spelling of Digoron as used in the Pamyatniki or by my informant.Heavy type is used for the phonetic transcription of my informant's pronunciation.Heavy type in single quotes is used to indicate the units of what may be called “unuttered speech”.The use of all three conventions is demonstrated by the following statement:— “nivәrun niværun is the realization of the junction of ‘ni’ and әvәrun’”.