THE IRÔN.
Locality.—Central Caucasus; conterminous with the Mizjeji on the East, the Georgians on the south, the Circassians on the north, and Imeretia on the west.
Name.—Called by themselves Irôn, by the Georgians, Osi (Plural Oseti).
As the single skull of the Georgian female did all the mischief in the physiological ethnography of Caucasus, an Irôn vocabulary has been the prime source of error in the way of its philology. Klaproth considered that the number of words common to the Irôn[40] and Persian languages was sufficient to place the former amongst the Indo-European languages. More than this, there were historical grounds for believing that the Irôn was the ancient language of Media[41]—also of the Alani of the later Roman empire. No man believed all this more than the present writer until the appearance of Rosen's sketch of the Irôn (Ossetic) grammar. He now believes that the Irôn is more Chinese than Indo-European.
Assuming, however, that Klaproth's position is correct, it follows that as the Georgian is undoubtedly akin to the Irôn, it may be Indo-European also. This is the view taken by Professor Bopp, from whose work, in favour of this position of the Georgian, the criticism relating to the numerals was taken. The method is as exceptionable as the result. If the Georgian be Indo-European, the Chinese is Indo-European also; and if the vaunted laws concerning the permutation and transition of letters lead to such philological leger-de-main as is to be found in more than one work of the German school, our scholarship is taking a retrograde direction.
However, the character of the Irôn grammar is as follows:—
The declension of nouns is simple; being limited to two numbers and four cases. Herein the inflection expressive of number can be separated from the inflection expressive of case—as fid-i=of a father, fid-t`-i=of fathers. Furthermore, the sign of case follows that of number. Such is the structure of case and number in Irôn, and such the sequence of the respective inflections expressive of each.
| Singular. | Plural. | |
|---|---|---|
| Nom. | fid[42] | fid-t`-a |
| Gen. | fid-i | fid-t`-i |
| Dat. | fid-én | fid-t`-am |
| Abl. | fid-éi | fid-t`-éi. |
| Nom. | moi[43] | moi-t`a |
| Gen. | moi-i | moi-t`i |
| Dat. | moi-én | moi-t-am |
| Abl. | moi-éi | moi-t`-éi. |
The comparative degree is formed by the addition of -dar; as chorz=good, chorz-dar=better. This has an Indo-European look. Compare it with the -τερ of the Greek comparatives. No superlative inflection.