ВОПРОСЫ ОНОМАСТИКИ | PROBLEMS OF ONOMASTICS

Azamat Aslanbekovich Betrozov
Yuri Albertovich Dzitstsoity
Center for Scytho-Alanic Studies, Vladikavkaz Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Mikhailovskoye village, Republic of North Ossetia–Alania, Russia

ON THE HISTORY OF OSSETIAN ORONYMY

For citation
Betrozov, A. A., & Dzitstsoity, Yu. A. (2026). On the History of Ossetian Oronymy. Voprosy onomastiki, 23(1), 9–28. https://doi.org/10.15826/vopr_onom.2026.23.1.001

Received on 16 July 2025
Accepted on 20 September 2025

Abstract: The article examines the geographical terms of the Ossetian language related to oronymy. For the first time in the scholarly literature the article discusses Ossetian dur//dor ‘mountain’. This meaning is attested exclusively in the toponymy of Ossetia, and in a residual form also in the language of the Ossetian folklore. The distribution of oronyms containing this component is assessed from the perspective of linguistic geography. The paper also provides an etymological analysis of other geographical terms and traces the evolution of the entire system of geographical terminology describing mountains and mountainous landscapes from the Proto-Iranian stage to modern Ossetian. It is shown that Proto-Iranian terms denoting a high mountain have disappeared from the Ossetian language, while only terms referring to low mountains and hills have been preserved. The authors suggest that this development may have resulted from the migration of the ancestors of the Ossetians from their original homeland to a plain lacking high mountains and mountain ranges. In the Caucasus, however, where the need to distinguish between high and low mountains became essential, Ossetian appears to have mobilized its internal lexical resources, employing words meaning ‘high’, ‘rising’, etc. One of the Proto-Iranian lexemes meaning ‘mountain’, *gari-, could have been preserved in Ossetia in the name of the sacred mountain Qæriw. Apparently, this lexeme acquired a sacred status at the Proto-Ossetian level, which saved it from oblivion. The survival of this term was likely supported by Ossetian mythology, which contains narratives about sacred mountains. The paper also presents typological parallels from Indo-European, Caucasian, and Turkic languages.

Keywords: oronymy; Ossetian language; Iranian languages; Caucasian languages; etymology; history; areal linguistics

Acknowledgements
This article is part of the project Toponymy of North Ossetia in Historical and Cultural Aspects, supported by the Russian Science Foundation within the 2025 grant competition “Fundamental Scientific Research and Exploratory Research by Small Individual Research Groups” (regional competition). The regional funding organization is the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution Vladikavkaz Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Republic of North Ossetia–Alania.

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