The Beginnings of Mordvin Literacy [antikvár]

Finno-Ugric Peoples in the Volga Region Introduction In memory of A. P. Feoktistov Mordvin belongs to tlie Finno-Volgaic branch of the Finno-Ugric language family; its closest relatives are Mari,' Saami, Finnish, Estonian and some smaller Baltic Finnic languages. According to the 2010 census, it is spoken by 740,000 people. Their numbers are rapidly decreasing as, according to the census 21 years earlier in 1989, 1,154,000 people considered themselves Mordvin. Only one third of them live in the republic named after them, while the others live in diaspora: primarily in the Penza, Saratov, Ulyanovsk, Nizhny Novgorod areas as well as on the other side of the Volga, around Samara and Orenburg, although they also appear as far afield as Uzbekistan and around Khabarovsk in Eastern Siberia. They only constitute one third of the inhabitants of the Republic of Mordovia, besides 61% Russian and 5% Tatar inhabitants. The two main dialects of the Mordvin language are Erzya and Moksha. Erzya is mostly spoken in the Eastern part of the present-day Republic of Mordovia and in the trans-Volga regions, whereas Mokshas live in the West-em part of the republic. Erzyas constitute the larger part of the population. The Erzya and Moksha literary languages were created in the 1920s. Mordvin, like other languages of national minorities in Russia, is now written in Cyrillic characters. Erzya follows phonematic, whereas Moksha phonetic principles. For general literature on Mordvins see: Bartens 1999a: 9-13; Feoktistov 1966: 172-173; 1975b: 248-262; 1993: 174-178; Hajdú 1987: 92-100; Keresztes 1990: 13-22; 2011: 11-12; Mészáros 1998; Raun 1988; Salo 1991: 156-159; Zaicz 1998; 2000. ' In this volume, the native names of smaller Uralic peoples are used, as is common practice nowadays: Mansi (previously: Vogul), Khanty (Ostyak), Komi (Zyryan), Udmurt (Votyak), Marl (Cheremis), Saami (Lappish), Nenets (Yurak), Enets (Yenisei-Samoyed), Nganasan (Tavgy), Selkup (Ostyak-Samoyed).