Talk:Erzya language

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loan-only letters[edit]

The list looks doubtful. It says that ь was for loans only, but that's strange because, say, the Nominative Definite flexion is -сь (cf. myv:Википедиясь).--Imz (talk) 19:38, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Number of Erzya speakers[edit]

The number of Erzya speakers cannot be correct. It is true that the source gives this figure for Erzya speakers, but it gives a much higher number for Mordvin speakers, which naturally includes Erzya.--Berig (talk) 08:50, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]


The number of Erzya speakers cannot be correct. The Ministry of Education in the Republic of Mordovia 2018-09-12, №7369 has informed «Olʲačiv Idʲelʲ - Ural» organization that all 44 schools in Saransk, Mordovia taught Moksha and Erzya during the 2017 school year. Further information includes that there are schools where Erzya and Moksha are taught as native languages from the first grade to the eleventh, and that there are schools where non-native classes are given from the second to the seventh grade. All in all there were 21,916 students of Erzya and 20,892 students of Moksha. Rueter (talk) 10:54, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand how any of that means the figure is incorrect, or even which figure you were referring to. — kwami (talk) 22:06, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi kwami! There is indeed an issue with the deflated Moksha and Erzya figures, which we have discussed here. I intended to fix the figures (or at least add a comment in the lede) in both articles for a long time, but somehow forgot about it. –Austronesier (talk) 10:24, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. For now, I went ahead and replaced both with the total figure. Do you have an idea what the distribution is? Used to be 2 to 1, decades ago, but our graph has 2.8 to 2.5. — kwami (talk) 17:28, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

kwami: This beautiful short grammar sketch still mentions the 2:1 ratio ("About two-thirds of the Mordvins speak Erzya and one-third Moksha"). It is not dated, but must be fairly new as it has a 2016 publication in the bibliography. –Austronesier (talk) 19:33, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but did they check, or did they just copy a figure from some source that copied it from some source that ... These things do tend to get repeated without verification. I have a book from 1975 that says the same thing, based on Soviet data from at least the 1960s, and very possibly earlier. I wouldn't be surprised if it dated to when the literary standards were being set up ca 1920. Given that language growth and loss won't have necessarily affected the two languages equally, I'm a bit cautious to keep repeating the same number. I'm curious where we got the ratio in the graph from. — kwami (talk) 22:18, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The table was added in this edit by Iketsi. Maybe they can help us out with where they got these numbers from. –Austronesier (talk) 08:39, 18 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Iketsi probably got the numbers from our articles (the ratios match), and those were figures I had added, supposedly from the 2002 census. But I probably got them from Ethnologue, because I just checked the census and the figure for Moksha was the entire Mordvin-speaking population reported in the census. No idea where the Erzya figure came from. Unfortunately, Merja Salo, who would likely have helped, died last year, but there are other people I can ask. — kwami (talk) 00:10, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Austronesier: The 2-to-1 ratio dates from the 1926 All-Soviet census. As of 2013, there hadn't been any later estimates. Ref. Jack Rueter (2013) The Erzya Language. Where is it spoken? Études finno-ougriennes 45. — kwami (talk) 22:28, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@kwami: Clearly, this is the best information we have per now. At least, Rueter also states that the gut feeling of his Mordvin colleagues confirms the old figures. And btw, I have just noticed that the second editor who brought up the issue last year in this discussion is in fact Jack Rueter himself. –Austronesier (talk) 14:36, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Internal classification of the Erzya language within the Uralic family.[edit]

I am confused because in this article, the upper right box tells us that Erzya belongs to the Mordvinic branch of the Uralic languages family, making it seem as if the Mordvinic branch was independent from other Uralic branches; however, in this other article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordvinic_languages It is clearly shown that the Mordvinic branch is actually a sub-branch of the Uralic family, belonging to the larger Finno-Ugric branch. I apologize if I quoted the aforementioned Wikipedia article in a not so proper or adequate format; I am new to the modern Wikipedia editing. If someone could clarify this issue, it would imho largely contribute to this article's quality. Thanks. Nacho2048 (talk) 21:56, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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