Merya or Meryanic () is an extinct

Finno-Ugric Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic languages, Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in ...

language, which was spoken by the

Meryans The Meryans () or Merya people () were an ancient Finnic people that lived in the Upper Volga region. The '' Primary Chronicle'' places them around the Nero and Pleshcheyevo lakes. They were assimilated by the Russians by the 17th century, but ...

. Merya began to be assimilated by

East Slavs The East Slavs are the most populous subgroup of the Slavs. They speak the East Slavic languages, and formed the majority of the population of the medieval state Kievan Rus', which they claim as their cultural ancestor.John Channon & Robert Huds ...

when their territory became incorporated into

Kievan Rus' Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus,. * was the first East Slavs, East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical At ...

in the 10th century. However some Merya speakers might have even lived in the 18th century. There is also a theory that the word for "

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

" originates from the Merya language. The Meryan language stretched to the western parts of

Vologda Oblast Vologda Oblast (, ; ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is Vologda. The oblast has a population of 1,202,444 (Russian Census (2010), 2010 Census). The largest city is Cherepovets, t ...

and

Classification

There is no general agreement on the relationship of Merya with its neighboring Uralic languages. * A traditional account places Merya as a member of the

Volga-Finnic The Volga Finns are a historical group of peoples living in the vicinity of the Volga, who speak Uralic languages. Their modern representatives are the Mari people, the Erzya and the Moksha (commonly grouped together as Mordvins) as well as spea ...

group, comprising also the Mordvinic and Mari languages. However, Volga Finnic is today considered obsolete. * T. Semenov and

Max Vasmer Max Julius Friedrich Vasmer (; ; 28 February 1886 – 30 November 1962) was a Russian and German linguist. He studied problems of etymology in Indo-European, Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages and worked on the history of Slavic, Baltic, ...

believed Merya to be a close relative of Mari. Vasmer saw that many Merya toponyms have Mari parallels. *One hypothesis classifies the Merya as a western branch of the

Mari people The Mari ( ), also formerly known as the Cheremis or Cheremisses, are a Finno-Ugric peoples, Finno-Ugric people in Eastern Europe, who have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama River, Kama rivers in Russia. They live mostly in the Mari E ...

rather than as a separate tribe. Their ethnonyms are basically identical, ''Merya'' being a Russian transcription of the Mari self-designation, ''Мäрӹ (Märӛ)''. According to , the ethnonym ''Merya'' in toponyms becomes ''Mari'' moving to the east. * Eugene Helimski supposed that the Merya language was part of a "northwest" group of Finno-Ugric, including also Balto-Finnic and

Sami Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ne ...

. Helimski argued that even though there are Mari parallels, they do not justify a close relationship with Mari and could be due to adjacency of the language areas. * Gábor Bereczki supposed that the Merya language was a part of the Balto-Finnic group. *Mordvinian author Aleksandr Sharonov claimed that Merya is an Erzyan dialect; however this is not well supported. Rahkonen (2013) argues that the likewise unattested and unclassified-within-Uralic

Muromian language Muromian is an extinct Uralic languages, Uralic language formerly spoken by the Muromian tribe, in what is today the Murom region in Russia. They are mentioned by Jordanes as ''Mordens'' and in the ''Primary Chronicle''. Very little is known abou ...

was a close relative of Merya, perhaps even a dialect of Meryan. A probable characteristic of the Merya language, which some researchers have noted, is the plural ''-k'', as in Hungarian, while most

Uralic languages The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers ab ...

use ''-t'' for the plural.

Reconstruction

There have been attempts to re-construct Merya based on toponyms,

onomastics Onomastics (or onomatology in older texts) is the study of proper names, including their etymology, history, and use. An ''alethonym'' ('true name') or an ''orthonym'' ('real name') is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onom ...

and words in

Russian dialects Russian dialects are spoken variants of the Russian language. Russian dialects and territorial varieties are divided in two conceptual chronological and geographic categories:Tomasz Kamusella, Kamusella, Tomasz. (2018). Russian: A Monocentric or ...

by O. B. Tkachenko, Arja Ahlqvist and A. K. Matveev among others. The first reconstructions were done in 1985 by O. B. Tkachenko. The latest book about Merya reconstructions was published in 2019.”Allikas: Ткаченко О. Б., Мерянский язык, Kiova 1985.” As an example: in Russian toponyms around where Merya was spoken, an ending () is regularly seen in names relating to lakes. This also resembles, but does not exactly match, the words for 'lake' in western Uralic languages, such as Finnish , Northern Sami , Erzya ('), Meadow Mari () (from a common proto-form ). From these it can be inferred that likely continues the Meryan word for 'lake', which may have had a shape such as According to Rahkonen, in Merya areas there is a word , which is probably cognate with the Komi word () 'middle river', and similar also to an element which appears in Finnish toponyms. From Merya toponyms it can also be seen that words such as 'down' (Finnish: ), 'give' (Finnish: ) existed in the Merya language. From this it can be concluded that Finnish corresponds to or in the Merya language. Another thing that can be observed is the Finnish sound "a" corresponding to a Merya "o", for example a hydronym can be seen, which can be compared to Finnish 'fish'. In the Muroma-Merya territory a word can be observed, which can be compared to Finnic *ülä ‘upper’.

Phonology

Meryan phonology has been studied only in general terms, relying on

in the

Kostroma Kostroma (, ) is a historic city and the administrative center of Kostroma Oblast, Russia. A part of the Golden Ring of Russian cities, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Volga and Kostroma. In the 2021 census, the population is 267, ...

and

Yaroslavl Yaroslavl (; , ) is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city is a World Heritage Site, and is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl rivers. ...

regions. Helimski suggests that Merya likely developed massive reduction of word-final syllables. The Merya language only allowed one consonant at the beginning of words, and likely placed stress on the first syllable of the word. It likely did not feature

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

. The vowels /ö/, /ä/ and /y/ likely existed in the Merya language.

References

External links

Grammar of Merya

Merjamaa
{{DEFAULTSORT:Merya Language Extinct languages of Europe Uralic languages Medieval languages Reconstructed languages

Classification

Reconstruction

Phonology

See also

References

External links