The Russian Federation is a huge multilingual country with many dialects and nationalities. The Republic of Mordovia is the closest to the capital of Russia, Moscow. Perhaps that is why today some people want to learn such exotic Mordovian languages.
Republic of Mordovia: general information
If you want to learn the Mordovian language, it will not hurt to first learn the basic information about the territory where it is distributed. Most of the inhabitants who are native speakers of this language and its dialects live in the Republic of Mordovia. It is located in the European part of Russia. The capital is Saransk. This city in 2011 was recognized as the most comfortable on the territory of the federation. Until the twentieth century, the people of the modern republic did not have their own statehood, although it was known about the Mordovian princes for a long time. Information about them was found in the writings of historians from Western Europe who lived and worked in the XIII century.
What you need to know about the languages of Mordovia?
Firstly, it should be remembered that the Mordovian languages are the languages of the Erzya and Moksha peoples, spread over the territory of the Mordovian Republic, as well as in such areas as Saratov, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, Penza, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, as well as in Chuvashia, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. These languages belong to the so-called Finno-Ugric family of the Finno-Volga group. According to the census, which was conducted in the Russian Federation in 2012, Mordovian languages were native to 615 thousand people. In 1989, the number of people speaking them exceeded 800 thousand. Of the entire Mordovian population, about two-thirds are Erzyans. At the same time, if you decide to learn this language, be prepared for some difficulties, because it consists of 5 separate dialects - these are Shokshan, Western, Central, Southeast, Northwest, which are slightly different from each other.
History of Erzyan Mordovian
Before the Erzya people joined the Russian state in the 15th century, they did not have the so-called phonetic writing. Therefore, the Mordovian Erzya language begins its history from this very moment. Writing originated on the basis of the spelling of the Russian language. The central dialect is considered basic today. Only in the mid-1930s did those spelling standards that are known to this day have developed. Mordovian languages largely coincide with Russian, especially in the alphabet.
Where can I learn the Mordovian language?
On the territory of some republics and regions of the Russian Federation (where the Erzya people live), Mordovian languages are studied in primary and secondary schools. That is why you can find a certain amount of not only educational literature, but also journalistic, and fiction. Magazines and newspapers are also published, television programs and radio programs are released.
Mordovian dialects
As mentioned above, the Mordovian language, the words of which are largely reminiscent of Russian, has five separate dialects. The central one was spread in the majority in the east of the Mordovian Republic (Chamzinsky district, Atyashevsky and some territory of Ichalkovsky). Prinsarsky, or western, spread along the river Insar, from which it got its name. Prialatyrsky, or northwestern, is distributed along the course of the Alatyr River and its tributaries. This territory includes Ardatovsky and Bolsheignatovsky, Poretsky and Alatyr districts. The Prisursky, or southeastern, dialect has spread throughout the tributaries of the Sura. The Shoksha dialect is historically isolated from other Erzya languages and is widespread in the Tengushevsky district.
Features of the typology of Mordovian languages
If we talk about the expression of grammatical meanings, the Erzyan language can be attributed to the synthetic. That is, all meaning can be found inside the words. As a rule, it is expressed only with the help of suffixes, since prefixes in this language practically do not exist. Speaking about the boundaries between morphemes, the language can be attributed to the so-called agglutinative group, that is, to create a new word, various affixes are “strung” on the basis. Moreover, each affix has only one meaning. Most often, words in sentences have a stable order. First comes the subject, then the complement, then the predicate. Sometimes one can come across the following order: subject - predicate - addition. Erzyan consists of 28 consonants and 5 vowels. The stress in words can fall on any syllables. Interesting is the so-called vowel harmony, which is found in some Mordovian languages (including Erzyan). This means that either back vowels or front vowels can be used in one word. Mixing the two types is almost impossible to find.
Mordovian language on the Internet
Of course, you can easily learn the Erzyan language yourself. For this, you may need a variety of educational literature, which you can find including on the Internet. There are separate lessons that any user can download. If you are going to visit the Mordovian Republic, but do not want to learn the Mordovian language, the phrasebook will solve this problem. You do not spend time studying, but you can talk to the local population in their dialect. The phrasebook will help translate the most popular phrases into Mordovian.
Also on the network you can find many different groups and forums at which those who want to learn Erzyan languages gather. There are many here who do not currently live on the territory of the Mordovian Republic or the Russian Federation, but do not want to lose touch with their historical homeland. Of course, it is quite difficult to learn the Mordovian language using self-instruction books and with the help of other educational literature, therefore it is better to find a teacher. To do this today is not easy, because Mordovian is not a very common language. But if you set a goal, you can find a suitable teacher. Otherwise, use the material found on the Web and published literature.