Ossetian (Ossetic) language - one of the Indoeuropean languages (Iranian group). Spoken in the republics of North Ossetia (Russia) and South Ossetia (Georgia), in various regions of Georgia and Northern Caucasus. The number of the Ossetians in Russia is 402,3 thousand. 93,2 % of them regard Ossetian as their mother tongue, 6,4 % Russian. The total number of the Ossetians on the territory of the former USSR is 598 thousand. Main dialects: Iron and Digor.

The Ossetian written language exists since the end of the 18th century, short epigraphs remain from earlier times. In 1844 A.M. Sjoegren created a writing system based on the Cyrillic script, the Latin alphabet was used in 1923-38, since 1938 the writing system has been based on the Russian script. The literary language is founded on the Iron dialect.

• Faculty of Ossetian philology and journalistics of the Northern Ossetian state university (information in Russian)
• Kosta Khetagurov - National poet of Ossetia (with selected works in Ossetian and Russian)
• Ossetian - Brief information on the Ossetian language on the Ossetian Homepage
• Ossetian language on-line - Vyacheslav Ivanov's site on the Ossetian language (in Russian)
• Republic of South Ossetia unofficial home page in Ossetian, English, Russian and Esperanto
• Short Ossetian grammar and an English-Ossetian-Russian phrase book
• Toma Kulaeva's home page in Ossetian (Latin alphabet), English and Russian