Erzya Language Information
The Erzya language (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 as well as in Kazakhstan and 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 the Uralic languages. Erzya is closely related to Moksha, but is distinct in its phonetics, morphology and vocabulary.
Phonology
Vowels
Minimal pairs between /i/ and /ɨ/ include:
- /viʃka/ "small" vs. /vɨʃka/ "antenna"
- /mirnesʲ/ "the little world" vs. /mɨrnesʲ/ "she meowed"
- /bɨznɨ/ "[a bumblebee] buzzes" vs. /biznɨ/ "[a mosquito] squeals", (see Rueter 2010: 16, 59-60)
Consonants
Minimal pairs between /n/ and /ŋ/ include:
- /janga/ "along the path (at the declension level, the alveolar /n/ of the stem is retained before the prolative case ending "Ga")" vs. /jaŋga/ "(the connegative form of the verb jaŋgams 'to break')"
- /jonks/ "good (subject or object complement in "ks" translative)" vs. /joŋks/ "direction; area", (see Rueter 2010: 58)
Writing
The modern Erzya alphabet is the same as for Russian:
| А
/a/ |
Б
/b/ |
В
/v/ |
Г
/ɡ/ |
Д
/d/ |
Е
/je/ |
Ё
/jo/ |
Ж
/ʒ/ |
З
/z/ |
И
/i/ |
Й
/j/ |
| К
/k/ |
Л
/l/ |
М
/m/ |
Н
/n/ |
О
/o/ |
П
/p/ |
Р
/r/ |
С
/s/ |
Т
/t/ |
У
/u/ |
Ф
/f/ |
| Х
/x/ |
Ц
/t͡s/ |
Ч
/t͡ʃ/ |
Ш
/ʃ/ |
Щ
/ʃt͡ʃ/ |
Ъ
/-/ |
Ы
/ɨ/ |
Ь
/◌ʲ/ |
Э
/e/ |
Ю
/ju/ |
Я
/ja/ |
The pre-1929 version of the Erzya alphabet included the additional letter Cyrillic ligature En Ge (Ҥ ҥ) in some publications, (cf. Evsevyev 1928).
The highlighted letters were used in loanwords from Russian only, with the specification that the soft sign ь appearing after non-alveolar consonants is a sign of loan words.[citation needed]
| А
/a/ |
Б
/b/ |
В
/v/ |
Г
/ɡ/ |
Д
/d/ |
Е
/je/ |
Ё
/jo/ |
Ж
/ʒ/ |
З
/z/ |
И
/i/ |
Й
/j/ |
К
/k/ |
| Л
/l/ |
М
/m/ |
Н
/n/ |
нг
/ŋ/ |
О
/o/ |
П
/p/ |
Р
/r/ |
С
/s/ |
Т
/t/ |
У
/u/ |
Ф
/f/ |
Х
/x/ |
| Ц
/t͡s/ |
Ч
/t͡ʃ/ |
Ш
/ʃ/ |
Щ
/ʃt͡ʃ/ |
Ъ
/-/ |
Ы
/ɨ/ |
Ь
/◌ʲ/ |
Э
/e/ |
Ю
/ju/ |
Я
/ja/ |
ä
/æ/ |
ə
/ə/ |
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
See also
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.
- 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, ISBN 978-952-5667-23-3 [print], ISBN 978-952-5667-24-0 [online].
- D.V. Tsygankin. Память запечатленная в слове: Словарь географических названий республики Мордовия. Saransk, 2005. ISBN 5-7493-0780-8.
External links
|
Erzya language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
Categories: Uralic languages | Languages of Russia | Languages of Kazakhstan | Languages of Kyrgyzstan | Languages of Uzbekistan | Languages of Turkmenistan | Mordovia
|
The above information uses material from Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Some facts may not have been fully verified for accuracy. [Disclaimers]
This page was last archived by our server on Sat Aug 6 18:26:25 2011.
Displaying this page or its contents does not use any Wikimedia Foundation's resources.
The owners of this site proudly support the Wikimedia Foundation.
|
|
