| Erzya | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Эрзянь Кель / erzänj kelj / eŕźań keĺ | ||||
| Spoken in | Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan | |||
| Region | Mordovia, Nizhny Novgorod, Chuvashia, Ulyanovsk, Samara, Penza, Saratov, Orenburg, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan | |||
| Native speakers | 697,000 (2002 census) | |||
| Language family | ||||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-2 | myv | |||
| ISO 639-3 | myv | |||
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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 Cyrillic 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.
Contents |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Minimal pairs between /i/ and /ɨ/ include:
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | ||||||
| Nasals | m | n | nʲ | ŋ | |||
| Plosives | voiceless | p | t | tʲ | k | ||
| voiced | b | d | dʲ | ɡ | |||
| Affricates | voiceless | t͡s | t͡sʲ | t͡ʃ | |||
| Fricatives | voiceless | f | s | sʲ | ʃ | x | |
| voiced | v | z | zʲ | ʒ | |||
| Trills | r | rʲ | |||||
| Approximants | l | lʲ | j | ||||
Minimal pairs between /n/ and /ŋ/ include:
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).
| 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:
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