Erzya language

Erzya language (Erzya: эрзянь кель) is spoken by about 500,000 people in the northern and eastern and north-western parts of the Republic of Mordovia and adjacent regions of Nizhniy Novgorod, Chuvashia, Penza, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in Russia. A diaspora can also be found in Armenia, Estonia, Kazakhstan and the other newly independent states of Central Asia. Erzya is currently written using the Cyrillic alphabet with no modifications to the variant used by the Russian language. In Mordovia, Erzya is co-official with Moksha and Russian.

The language belongs to the Mordvinic branch of Finno-Volgaic languages a sub-branch of the Finno-Ugric languages. Erzya is closely related to Moksha, but is distinct in its phonetics, morphology and vocabulary.

SIL code: MYV

ISO 639-2: myv

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Vowels

Minimal pairs: "vishka" 'small' and "vɨshka" 'antenna'

"mirnesj" 'the little world' and "mɨrnesj" 'she meowed' "bɨznɨ" '[a bumblebee] buzzes' and "bizni" '[a mosquito] squeals'

[edit] Consonants

[edit] Writing

Modern Cyrillic alphabet is the same as for Russian language: А/а, Б/б, В/в, Г/г, Д/д, Е/е, Ё/ё, Ж/ж, З/з, И/и, Й/й, К/к, Л/л, М/м, Н/н, О/о, П/п, Р/р, С/с, Т/т, У/у, Ф/ф, Х/х, Ц/ц, Ч/ч, Ш/ш, Щ/щ, Ъ/ъ, Ы/ы, Ь/ь, Э/э, Ю/ю, Я/я.

A former version (pre-1927) of the Cyrillic alphabet Erzya employed included additional letters, for example, a schwa:^{[citation needed]}

Latin alphabet (officially approved by government of Nizhne-Volzhskiy kray in 1932, but was never used) a в c ç d ә e f g y i j k l m n o p r s ş t u v x z ƶ ь

[edit] See also

• Erzya people

[edit] External links

Erzya language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Finno-Ugric Electronic Library by the Finno-Ugric Information Center in Syktyvkar, Komi Republic (interface in Russian and English, texts in Mari, Komi, Udmurt, Erzya and Moksha languages): [1]
• Erzjanj Mastor - The society for preserving the Erzya language (in Erzya and Russian)
• http://www.info-rm.com/er/index.php News in the Erzya and Moksha Mordvinian languages

[edit] Bibliography

• A.I. Bryzhinskiy, O.V. Pashutina, Ye.I. Chernov. Писатели Мордовии Биобиблиографический справочник. Saransk: Mordovskoye Knizhnoye Izdatelystvo, 2001. ISBN 5-7595-1386-9.
• Vasilij D'omin. Сюконян тенк... Эрзянь писательде ёвтнемат. Saransk, 2005. ISBN 5-7595-1665-5.
• Ksenija Djordjevic & Jean-Leo Leonard. Parlons Mordve. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006, ISBN 2-296-00147-5.
• D.V. Tsygankin. Память запечатленная в слове: Словарь географических названий республики Мордовия. Saransk, 2005. ISBN 5-7493-0780-8.