Mordovian languages: how to learn

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. Probably, that's why for today some people want to learn such exotic Mordovian languages.

Republic of Mordovia: general information

If you want to study the Mordvin language, it will not hurt to first learn the main information about the territory where it is distributed. Most of the residents who are native speakers of this language and its dialects reside on the territory of 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 its own statehood, although the Mordvinian princes had been known for a long time. Information about them was found in the writings of historians from Western Europe who lived and worked in the 13th century.

What do 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, distributed in the territory of the Mordovian Republic, as well as in such areas as Saratov, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, Penza, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, and also 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, the Mordovian languages were native to 615 thousand people. In 1989, the number of speakers on them exceeded 800 thousand. Of the entire Mordovian population, about two-thirds are Erzians. At the same time, if you decide to study this language, be prepared for some difficulties, because it consists of 5 separate dialects - Shokshan, Western, Central, Southeast, North-West, which differ slightly from each other.

History of the Erzya Mordovian language

Before the Erzya people joined the Russian state in the 15th century, they did not have a so-called phonetic letter. Therefore Mordovian Erzya language begins its history from this moment. Writing originated on the basis of spelling of the Russian language. The central dialect is today considered the central dialect. Only in the mid-1930s were those norms of spelling, which are known to this day. Mordovian languages largely coincide with the Russian, especially in the alphabet.

Where can you learn the Mordvin language?

On the territory of some republics and regions of the Russian Federation (where the people of Erzya live) Mordovian languages are studied in primary and secondary schools. That is why you can find a number of not only educational literature, but also journalistic, and artistic. Also, magazines and newspapers are produced, television programs and radio programs are broadcast.

Dialects of Mordovian language

As mentioned above, the Mordvinian language, whose words are largely Russian, has five separate dialects. Central has spread in the majority in the east of the Mordovian republic (Chamzinsky district, Atyashevsky and some territory of Ichalkovsky). Priensar, or western, spread along the river Insar, from which it received its name. Prialatyr, or north-western, is distributed along the Alatyr River and its tributaries. This territory includes Ardatovsky and Bolsheignatovsky, Poretsky and Alatyrsky districts. Prisursky, or southeastern, dialect spread over the tributaries of Sura. The Shokshin dialect is historically isolated from other Erzya languages and is distributed in the territory of the Tengushevsky district.

Features of the typology of Mordovian languages

If we talk about the expression of grammatical meanings, then the Erzyan language can be attributed to the synthetic one. That is, all the value can be found inside words. As a rule, it is expressed only with the help of suffixes, since consoles in this language practically does not exist. Speaking about the boundaries between morphemes, the language can be referred to the so-called agglutinative group, that is, to create a new word, different affixes are "threaded" on the basis. In this case, each affix has only one value. Most often words in sentences have a stable order. First comes the subject, then the complement, then the predicate. Sometimes you can find such an order: subject - predicate - addition. The Erzyan language consists of 28 consonants and 5 vowel sounds. A stress in words can fall on any syllables. An interesting is the so-called vowel harmony, which occurs in some Mordovian languages (including Erzyan). This means that one word can use either the rear vowels or the front vowels. Mixing the two types is almost impossible to find.

Mordvinian on the Internet

Of course, you can study the Erzya language without problems. To do this, you may need different educational literature, which you can find, including on the Internet. Here 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 Mordvin language, the phrasebook will solve this problem. You will not spend time studying, but you will be able to talk with the local population in their dialect. Phrasebook will help translate the most popular phrases in Mordovian.

Also in the network, you can find many different groups and forums, which gather those who want to learn Erzya languages. Quite a few here and those who do not currently live in the territory of the Mordovian republic or the Russian Federation, but do not want to lose touch with the historical homeland. Of course, it is quite difficult to teach the Mordovian language by self-tutors and with the help of other educational literature, so it is better to find a teacher. To do this for today is not easy, because Mordovian is not very common language. But if you set a goal, you can find a suitable teacher. Otherwise - use the material that you find on the Web and published literature.