The Erzya language (, , ), also Erzian or historically Arisa, is spoken by approximately 300,000 people in the northern, eastern and north-western parts of the Republic of Mordovia and adjacent regions of

Nizhny Novgorod Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət ), colloquially shortened to Nizhny, from the 13th to the 17th century Novgorod of the Lower Land, formerly known as Gork ...

Chuvashia Chuvashia (russian: Чувашия; cv, Чӑваш Ен), officially the Chuvash Republic — Chuvasia,; cv, Чӑваш Республики — Чӑваш Ен is a republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. It is the homeland of the Chuv ...

, Penza,

Samara Samara ( rus, Сама́ра, p=sɐˈmarə), known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev (; ), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with ...

Saratov Saratov (, ; rus, Сара́тов, a=Ru-Saratov.ogg, p=sɐˈratəf) is the largest city and administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River upstream (north) of Volgograd. Saratov had a population of 901,36 ...

Orenburg Orenburg (russian: Оренбу́рг, ), formerly known as Chkalov (1938–1957), is the administrative center of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Ural River, southeast of Moscow. Orenburg is also very close to the Kazakhstan-Russia bor ...

Ulyanovsk Ulyanovsk, known until 1924 as Simbirsk, is a city and the administrative center of Ulyanovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Volga River east of Moscow. Population: The city, founded as Simbirsk (), was the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin (born ...

, Tatarstan and

Bashkortostan The Republic of Bashkortostan or Bashkortostan ( ba, Башҡортостан Республикаһы, Bashqortostan Respublikahy; russian: Республика Башкортостан, Respublika Bashkortostan),; russian: Респу́блик� ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. A

diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...

can also be found in

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

and

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, as well as in

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

and other states of

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

. Erzya is currently written using

Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

with no modifications to the variant used by the Russian language. In Mordovia, Erzya is co-official with

Moksha ''Moksha'' (; sa, मोक्ष, '), also called ''vimoksha'', ''vimukti'' and ''mukti'', is a term in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism for various forms of emancipation, enlightenment, liberation, and release. In its soteriology, ...

and Russian. The language belongs to the Mordvinic branch of the

Uralic languages The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...

. Erzya is a language that is closely related to

but has distinct phonetics, morphology and vocabulary.

Phonology

Consonants

The following table lists the consonant phonemes of Erzya together with their

equivalents. Note on romanized transcription: in Uralic studies, the members of the palatalized series are usually spelled as ''ń'', ''ť'', ''ď'', ''ć'', ''ś'', ''ź'', ''ŕ'', ''ľ'', while the postalveolar sounds are spelled ''č'', ''š'', ''ž'' (see

Uralic Phonetic Alphabet The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nesto ...

Minimal pair In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate th ...

s between and include: * "along the path", in which the alveolar of the stem is retained before the prolative case ending , vs. , the connegative form of the verb "to break" * "good", subject or object complement in translative, vs. "direction; area". See Rueter 2010: 58.

Vowels

Erzya has a simple five-vowel system. Mordovians in Russia

The front vowels and have centralized variants and immediately following a plain alveolar consonant, e.g. ''siń'' "they", ''seń'' "blue".

Vowel harmony

As in many other

, Erzya has

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...

. Most roots contain either

front vowels Front may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film * ''The Front'', 1976 film Music *The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and ea ...

(, ) or

back vowels The human back, also called the dorsum, is the large posterior area of the human body, rising from the top of the buttocks to the back of the neck. It is the surface of the body opposite from the chest and the abdomen. The vertebral column ru ...

(, ). In addition, all suffixes with mid vowels have two forms: the form to be used is determined by the final syllable of the stem. The low vowel (), found in the comparative case -шка (''ška'') "the size of" and the prolative -ка/-га/-ва (''ka''/''ga''/''va'') "spatial multipoint used with verbs of motion as well as position" is a back vowel and not subject to vowel harmony. The rules of vowel harmony are as follows: # If the final syllable of the word stem contains a front vowel, the front form of the suffix is used: веле (''veĺe'') "village", велесэ (''veĺese'') "in a village" # If the final syllable of the word stem contains a back vowel, and it is followed by plain (non-palatalized) consonants, the back form of the suffix is used: кудо (''kudo'') "house", кудосо (''kudoso'') "in a house" However, if the back vowel is followed by a palatalized consonant or palatal glide, vowel harmony is violated and the "front" form of the suffix is used: кальсэ (''kaĺse'') "with willow", ойсэ (''ojse'') "with butter". Likewise, if a front-vowel stem is followed by a low back vowel suffix, subsequent syllables will contain back harmony: велеванзо (''veĺevanzo'') "throughout its villages" Thus the seeming violations of vowel harmony attested in stems, e.g. узере (''uźere'') "axe", суре (''suŕe'') "thread (string)", are actually due to the palatalized consonants and . One exception to front-vowel harmony is observed in palatalized non-final , e.g. асфальтсо (''asfaĺtso'') "with asphalt".

Morphology

Like all other

, Erzya is an

agglutinative language An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to remain ...

which expresses grammatical relations by means of

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...

es.

Nouns

Nouns are inflected for

case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...

definiteness In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical d ...

and possessor. Erzya distinguishes twelve cases (here illustrated with the noun мода ''moda'' "ground, earth"). Number is systematically distinguished only with definite nouns; for indefinite nouns and nouns with a possessive suffix, only nominative case has a distinct plural. Plural possessors follow the pattern of second person singular possessors.

Verbs

Erzya verbs are inflected for tense and mood, and are further conjugated for person of subject and object. Traditionally, three stem types are distinguished: ''a''-stems, ''o''-stems and ''e''-stems. ''A''-stems always retain the stem vowel ''a'' in the non-third person present tense forms, and in the third person first past tense forms (e.g. ''pala-ś'' "kissed"). With many ''o''-stems and ''e''-stems, the stem vowel is dropped in these forms (e.g. ''o''-stem ''van-ś'' "watched", ''e''-stem ''ńiľ-ś'' "swallowed"), but there also ''o''- and ''e''-stem verbs which retain the vowel (''udo-ś'' "slept", ''piďe-ś'' "cooked"). Rueter (2010) therefore divides verb stems into vowel-retaining stems and vowel-dropping stems. In indicative mood, three tenses are distinguished: present/future, first past, second (=habitual) past. The third person singular form in present tense is also used as present participle. The second past tense is formed by adding the past tense copula ''-ľ'' to the present participle. The other mood categories are: *conditional (''-ińďeŕa'' + present suffixes) *conjunctive (''-v(o)ľ'' + past suffixes) *conditional-conjunctive (''-ińďeŕa-v(o)ľ'' + past suffixes) *desiderative (''-ikseľ'' + past suffixes) *optative (''zo'' + present suffixes) *imperative (''-k''/''-do'')

Writing

Cyrillic alphabet

The modern Erzya alphabet is the same as for Russian: : The letters ф, х, щ and ъ are only used in loanwords from Russian. The pre-1929 version of the Erzya alphabet included the additional letter Cyrillic ligature En Ge (Ҥ ҥ) in some publications, (cf. Evsevyev 1928). In combination with the alveolar consonants т, д, ц, с, з, н, л, and р, vowel letters are employed to distinguish between plain and palatalized articulations in a similar way as in Russian: а, э, ы, о, у follow plain alveolars, while я, е, и, ё, ю follow palatalized alveolars, e.g. та /ta/, тэ /te/, ты /ti/, то /to/, ту /tu/ vs. тя /tʲa/, те /tʲe/, ти /tʲi/, тё /tʲo/, тю /tʲu/. If no vowel follows, palatalization is indicated by ь, e.g. ть /tʲ/. Following non-alveolar consonants, only а, е, и, о, у occur, e.g. па /pa/, пе /pe/, пи /pi/, по /po/, пу /pu/.

Latin alphabet

A Latin alphabet was officially approved by the government of Nizhne-Volzhskiy Kray in 1932, but it 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 A modern version of Latin alphabet exists: ::::a b c č ć d d́ e f g h i j k l ĺ m n ń o p r ŕ s š ś t t́ u v y z ž ź :

Bibliography

*A.I. Bryzhinskiy, O.V. Pashutina, Ye.I. Chernov. Писатели Мордовии Биобиблиографический справочник. Saransk: Mordovskoye Knizhnoye Izdatelystvo, 2001. . *Vasilij D'omin. Сюконян тенк... Эрзянь писательде ёвтнемат. Saransk, 2005. . *Ksenija Djordjevic & Jean-Leo Leonard. Parlons Mordve. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006, . *Makar E. Evsev'ev. Основы мордовской грамматика, Эрзянь грамматика. С приложением образцов мокшанских склонений и спряжений. Москва: Центральное издательство народов СССР, 1928. *Jack Rueter. Adnominal Person in the Morphological System of Erzya. Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia 261. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, 2010,

rint C mathematical operations are a group of functions in the standard library of the C programming language implementing basic mathematical functions. All functions use floating-point numbers in one manner or another. Different C standards provide d ...

nline *D.V. Tsygankin. Память запечатленная в слове: Словарь географических названий республики Мордовия. Saransk, 2005. .

References

External links

* *Finno-Ugric Electronic Library by the Finno-Ugric Information Center in

Syktyvkar Syktyvkar (, rus, Сыктывка́р, p=sɨktɨfˈkar; kv, Сыктывкар) is the capital city of the Komi Republic in Russia, as well as its largest city. It is also the capital of the Syktyvkar Urban Okrug. Until 1930, it was known as U ...

Komi Republic The Komi Republic (russian: Республика Коми; kv, Коми Республика), sometimes simply referred to as Komi, is a republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. Its capital is the city of Syktyvkar. The population of the ...

(interface in Russian and English, texts in Mari, Komi, Udmurt, Erzya and

languages)
Erzjanj Mastor
nbsp;– The society for preserving the Erzya language (in Erzya and Russian) * https://web.archive.org/web/20061029185215/http://www.info-rm.com/er/index.php News in the Erzya and Moksha Mordvinian languages

Эрзянский язык
Erzya – Finnish/English/German/Russian dictionary
(robust finite-state, open-source)

Erzya studies reference bibliography under construction.
Russian-Moksha-Erzya Dictionary

{{DEFAULTSORT:Erzya Language Erzya language, Languages of Russia