Ossetians from Russia and Turkey on Saturday will simultaneously write a dictation in their native language, the action will be timed to coincide with the birthday of the founder of the literary Ossetian language, Kosta Khetagurov.
This was announced to TASS by the initiator of the action, a representative of the Ossetian community of St. Petersburg, Kazbek Aldatov.
«We are holding such an action for the first time on the eve of Kosta Khetagurov’s birthday, October 14. This year, about 70 Ossetians from Turkey, North Ossetia and St. Petersburg have joined it, in the future we hope to increase the number of participants,» Aldatov said.
Within the framework of the action, competitions for knowledge of the culture and traditions of the Ossetian people will also be held. Lapel pins with the image of Khetagurov have been specially prepared for the participants.
According to Kazbek Aldatov, the text of the dictation, which will take place on Saturday in St. Petersburg, Vladikavkaz and Ankara, is an excerpt from the biography of Kosta Khetagurov. «The format of the event is like in school, one person reads , the rest write. For this we took an excerpt of Costa’s biography in Ossetian. It tells how the poet fell in love with a girl Olga, who had a very strict military father,» Aldatov said …
The Ossetian language belongs to the Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages and is, along with Yagnob, one of the two Northeast Iranian languages that have survived to this day.
For North Ossetia, the problem of the Ossetians’ ignorance of their native language remains urgent. According to UNESCO, in the capital of the republic, Vladikavkaz, about 80% of Ossetian first-graders do not speak their native language.
