Mordva: appearance, language and origin

Mordva is a people speaking one of the Finno-Ugric dialects. He lives in the basins of two rivers, Moksha and Sura, and between the rivers Belaya and Volga. This is one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation. Within the borders of the Republic of Mordovia, one third of this people live, and most of it is settled in neighboring regions of the Russian Federation. By the way, representatives of this people do not call themselves that. This ethnonym came from a word translated as "man, man." Mordvins are divided into two main tribes - Erzya (Erzya) and Moksha (Mokshet).

Many historians are interested in the origin of the Mordvians. Their appearance in most cases does not differ from the appearance of their Slavic-speaking neighbors, but they speak the language of a completely different group. Their culture is different from Russian, but not radically. The origin of the Mordva is seen by many historians in the ancient people of the so-called "Gorodets culture". In ancient Russian sources this people has been mentioned since the eleventh century. At the end of the twelfth century the Mordvinians disappear the primitive order. On its lands a power is formed, known to the Slavs as "Purgasova volost". Then these territories became part of Rus. By religion, most of them are Orthodox, but nevertheless in recent decades they have shown interest in the ancient religion of their ancestors.

The ancient tradition has preserved to this day the Mordva. The appearance of man from this People dressed in a traditional costume, it seems very original and colorful. The style of women's and men's costumes differs significantly. Traditional cuisine resembles Russian: porridge, sauerkraut, sour bread, boiled meat. From drinks kvass is popular.

An inhomogeneous, binary people is the Mordva. Their appearance has the remains of Mongoloidness, and in some cases, its obvious signs. This is due to the fact that a few thousand years ago the population of the Urals moved towards the West, mixing with the European peoples. This is also due to the replacement of the language of people of ancient urban culture in the language of the Finno-Ugric group. Invaders belonging to the Urals race, assimilated the local population, to a large extent mixed with it. So the people of the Mordvins were formed. The appearance of its representatives as a whole is a combination of European and Mongoloid features with a predominance of the former.

The number of this people in our time is decreasing. To a large extent this is due to the processes of assimilation. A significant part of this people uses Russian as the language of everyday communication. Assimilation began even in times of feudal disunity of Rus. Since then, the pace of assimilation of the Mordva has been steadily increasing. Some of its ethnographic groups have long Russified and dissolved in the mass of Russians.

There is no single, common Mordovian language - there are Erzyan and Mokshan languages. They are insignificant, and there is more in common between them than differences. Once they were just dialects of a single language, spoken by the Mordva. Its origin is Finno-Ugrian, with some borrowings from the language of neighboring peoples, in particular, from Tatar and Russian.