Blackwell Reference Online

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One of the two members (the other being * Mari ) of the Volga Finnic group of the * Finno-Ugrian languages. The Mordvinians are one of the most numerous of the Finno-Ugrian languages but, on the other hand, one of the most scattered. Of the 1,153,987 Mordvinian-speakers enumerated in 1989, only 28% lived within the boundaries of the Mordvinian Republic (capital, Saransk) (Russian Federation), where they accounted for about 37% of the population. A further 22% were to be found in the neighbouring districts of Penza, Ulyanovsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Saratov, and in the Chuvash Republic, and 23% on the other side of the Volga in the districts of Samara (Kuybyshev), Orenburg and Perm and in the Tatar and Bashkir Republics. The remaining 27% live scattered from Ukraine and Moscow to the Caucasus and from the Altay mountains to Khabarovsk and Sakhalin Island. Two dialectal groupings can be distinguished, each with several subdivisions: (i) an eastern dialect, Erza, in and around the valley of the Sura, accounting for some two-thirds of the Mordvinians; (ii) a western dialect, Moksha, around the river Moksha. The dialectal separation of the two groups is reckoned to date from the 7th or 8th c. As a result of later migrations, mixed dialects emerged. Differences in phonetic structure, morphology and syntax between the two main dialectal groupings are such that intercommunication is difficult ... log in or subscribe to read full text