Digor Ossetian (/ˈdɪɡər/; Ossetian: дигорон ӕвзаг, romanized: digoron ӕvzag pronounced [digɔːrɔːn ɐvzɑːg]) also known as Digor Ossetic or Digor-Ossetic, is a dialect of the Ossetic language spoken by the Digor people. It is less widely spoken than Iron, the other extant Ossetian dialect. The two are distinct enough to sometimes be considered separate languages; in the recently published Digor–Russian dictionary, the compiler Fedar Takazov refers to a "Digor language", though the editor in the same book uses "Digor dialect".
| Digor | |
|---|---|
| Дигорон ӕвзаг, Digoron ӕvzag | |
| Pronunciation | [digɔːrɔːn ɐvzɑːg] |
| Native to | North Caucasus |
| Ethnicity | Digors (West Ossetians) |
Native speakers | ca. 100,000 (2010)[1] |
| Cyrillic (current) Arabic, Latin (historical) | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Russia |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | digo1242 |
Digor is spoken in the west of the Republic of North Ossetia (Digora, Chikola, etc.) and in neighboring Kabardino-Balkaria.[2] Digor is used far less than Iron at about a one to five ratio while also being non-existent in the Republic of South Ossetia.[2]
Digor and Iron are not mutually comprehensible, as there are about 2,500 words in the Digor dialect that do not exist in the Iron dialect, and some North Ossetian scholars still consider Digor a separate language, as it was considered until 1937.[2] The phonetic, morphological, and lexical differences between the two dialects are greater than between Chechen and Ingush.[2]
In 2011 North Ossetia launched a Digor language version of the REGNUM News Agency and adopted two efforts to promote the study of the Digor for young students whose parents have forgotten the dialect in 2008 to 2012 and 2013 to 2015 respectively.[2] Additionally, at this time, the government of North Ossetia started offering textbooks in Digor.[2]