Muromian is an extinct

Uralic 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 abo ...

language formerly spoken by the Muromian tribe, in what is today the

Murom Murom (, ) is a historical types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, which sprawls along the west bank of the Oka River. It borders Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and is situated from the administrative center Vladimir, ...

region in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. They are mentioned by

Jordanes Jordanes (; Greek language, Greek: Ιορδάνης), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, claimed to be of Goths, Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life. He wrote two works, one on R ...

as ''Mordens'' and in the ''

Primary Chronicle The ''Primary Chronicle'', shortened from the common ''Russian Primary Chronicle'' (, commonly transcribed ''Povest' vremennykh let'' (PVL), ), is a Rus' chronicle, chronicle of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110. It is believed to have been or ...

''. Very little is known about the language, but it was probably closely related to the Mordvinic languages

Moksha ''Moksha'' (; , '), also called ''vimoksha'', ''vimukti'', and ''mukti'', is a term in Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism for various forms of emancipation, liberation, '' nirvana'', or release. In its soteriological and eschatologic ...

and Erzya. Muromian probably became extinct in the Middle Ages around the 10th century, as the Muromians were assimilated by the Slavs. The Muromian language is unattested, but is assumed to have been Uralic, and has frequently been placed in the Volga-Finnic category.

Toponymy

A. K. Matveyev identified the

toponymic Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for a proper nam ...

area upon Lower Oka and Lower

Klyazma The Klyazma (, ''Klyaz'ma'' or ''Kliazma''), a river in the Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Ivanovo and Vladimir Oblasts in Russia, forms a left tributary of the Oka.

, which corresponds with Muroma. According to the toponymy, the Muroma language was close to the

Merya language Merya or Meryanic () is an extinct Finno-Ugric language, which was spoken by the Meryans. Merya began to be assimilated by East Slavs when their territory became incorporated into Kievan Rus' in the 10th century. However some Merya speakers might ...

.''Матвеев А. К.'' Мерянская проблема и лингвистическое картографирование // Вопросы языкознания. 2001. № 5. A few words have been reconstructed in the Muroma language, based on toponyms, such as: ''*juga'' 'river', ''*vi̮ksa'' ‘river connecting two bodies of water', and ''*voht(V)'' ‘neck of land between two bodies of water’.Pauli Rahkonen. South-Eastern contact area of Finnic languages in the light of onomastics: dissertation, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki. 2018
/ref>

References

Extinct languages of Europe Uralic languages Medieval languages {{uralic-lang-stub hu:Muromák