Editing Scythian languages (section)

== Classification ==
Ossetian is an  [[Eastern Iranian languages|Eastern Iranic]] language. The vast majority of Scythological scholars agree in considering the Scythian languages a part of the Eastern Iranic languages too. This relies principally on the fact that the Greek inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea Coast contain several hundreds of Sarmatian names showing a close affinity to the [[Ossetian language]].<ref>Compare L. Zgusta, ''Die griechischen Personennamen griechischer Städte der nördlichen Schwarzmeerküste'' [The Greek personal names of the Greek cities of the northern Black Sea coast], 1955.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts |first=Michael |last=Witzel |author-link=Michael Witzel |journal=Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies |volume=7 |issue=3 |year=2001 |pages=1–115 |doi=10.11588/ejvs.2001.3.830|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Some scholars detect a division of Scythian into two dialects: a western, more conservative dialect, and an eastern, more innovative one.<ref>
E.g. Harmatta 1970.{{page needed|date=October 2010}}
</ref> The Scythian languages may have formed a [[dialect continuum]]:
* '''[[Alanic language]]s''' or '''Scytho-Sarmatian''' in the west: were spoken by people originally of Iranic stock from the 8th and 7th century BC onwards in the area of [[Ukraine]], Southern [[Russia]] and [[Kazakhstan]].
**Modern [[Ossetian language|Ossetian]] survives as a continuation of the language family ''possibly'' represented by Scytho-Sarmatian inscriptions, although the Scytho-Sarmatian language family "does not simply represent the same [Ossetian] language" at an earlier date.
[[File:Khotanese animal zodiac BLI6 OR11252 1R2 1.jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|A document from [[Khotan]] written in [[Saka language|Khotanese Saka]], part of the [[Eastern Iranian languages|Eastern Iranic branch]] of the [[Indo-European languages]], listing the animals of the [[Chinese zodiac]] in the cycle of predictions for people born in that year; ink on paper, early 9th century]]
* '''[[Saka language]]s''' or '''Scytho-Khotanese''' in the east: spoken in the first century in the [[Kingdom of Khotan]] (located in present-day [[Xinjiang]], China), and including the '''Khotanese''' of [[Khotan]] and '''Tumshuqese''' of [[Tumxuk|Tumshuq]].<ref>Schmitt, Rüdiger (ed.), Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, Reichert, 1989.{{page needed|date=October 2010}}</ref>

It is highly probable that already in the Old Iranic period, there were some eastern Scythian dialects which gave rise to the ancestor(s) of the [[Sogdian language|Sogdian]] and [[Yaghnobi language|Yaghnobi]] languages, although data required to test this hypothesis is presently lacking.{{sfn|Novák|2013|p=11}}

The Scythian languages shared some features with other Eastern Iranic languages, such as the use of the suffix {{Transliteration|xsc|-ta}} to denote the plural form, which is also present in [[Sogdian language|Sogdian]], [[Khwarezmian language|Chorasmian]], [[Ossetian language|Ossetian]], and [[Yaghnobi language|Yaghnobi]].{{sfn|Ivantchik|1999a|p=156-158}}