Moksha (, ) is a Mordvinic language of the Uralic family, spoken by Mokshas, with around 130,000 native speakers in 2010. Moksha is the majority language in the western part of Mordovia. Encyclopædia Britannica Its closest relative is the Erzya language, with which it is not mutually intelligible. Moksha is also possibly closely related to the extinct Meshcherian and Muromian languages.
History
Cherapkin's Inscription
There is very little historical evidence of the use of Moksha from the distant past. One notable exception are inscriptions on so-called mordovka silver coins issued under Golden Horde rulers around the 14th century. The evidence of usage of the language (written with the Cyrillic script) comes from the 16th century.Зайковский Б. В. «К вопросу о мордовках» Труды Нижне-Волжского областного научного общества краеведения. Вып. 36, часть 1. Саратов, 1929 гВячеслав Юрьевич Заварюхин. Памятники нумизматики и бонистики в региональном историко-культурном процессе, автореферат диссертации, 2006
Indo-Iranian Influence Indo-Iranian forms D–V Indo-Iranian form Declining stem Meaning Moksha derivatives داس Persian: dâs "sickle" тарваз "sickle" 𐬠𐬀𐬖𐬀 Avestan: baγa "God" паваз "God" ऊधर् Sanskrit: ū́dhar "udder" одар "udder" वज्र Sanskrit: vajra "God's weapon" узерь "axe"
Dialects
The Moksha language is divided into three dialects: Central group (M-I) Western group (M-II) South-Eastern group (M-III)
The dialects may be divided with another principle depending on their vowel system: ä-dialect: Proto-Moksha *ä is retained: śeĺmä "eye", t́äĺmä "broom", ĺäj "river". e-dialect: Proto-Moksha *ä is raised and merged with *e: śeĺme "eye", t́eĺme "broom", ĺej "river". The South-Eastern group belongs to the e-dialect i-dialect: Proto-Moksha *ä is raised to , while Proto-Moksha *e is raised to and merged with *i: śiĺme "eye", t́eĺme "broom", ĺej "river".
The standard literary Moksha language is based on the central group with ä (particularly the dialect of Krasnoslobodsk).
Sociolinguistics
Official status
Moksha is one of the three official languages in Mordovia (the others being Erzya and Russian). The right to one's own language is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Mordovia Republic. Статья 12. Конституция Республики Мордовия = Article 12. Constitution of the Republic of Mordovia The republican law of Mordovia N 19-3 issued in 1998 Закон «О государственных языках Республики Мордовия» declares Moksha one of its state languages and regulates its usage in various spheres: in state bodies such as Mordovian Parliament, official documents and seals, education, mass-media, information about goods, geographical names, road signs. However, the actual usage of Moksha and Erzya is rather limited.
Revitalisation efforts in Mordovia Policies regarding the revival of the Moksha and Erzya languages in Mordovia started in the late 1990s, when the Language, and Education Laws were accepted. From the early 2000s on, the policy goal has been to create a unified Mordvin standard language despite differences between Erzya and Moksha.
However, there have been no executive programmes for the implementation of the Language Law. Only about a third of Mordvin students had access to Mordvin language learning, the rest of whom are educated through Russian. Moksha has been used as the medium of instruction in some rural schools, but the number of students attending those schools is in rapid decline. In 2004, Mordovian authorities attempted to introduce compulsory study of the Mordvin/Moksha as one of the Republic's official languages, but this attempt failed in the aftermath of the 2007 education reform in Russia.
Phonology Vowels There are eight vowels with limited allophony and reduction of unstressed vowels. Moksha has lost the original Uralic system of vowel harmony but maintains consonant-vowel harmony (palatalized consonants go with front vowels, non-palatalized with non-front).
Front Central Back Close Mid Open
There are some restrictions for the occurrence of vowels within a word:Feoktistov 1993, p. 182. is an allophone of the phoneme after phonemically non-palatalized ("hard") consonants.Feoktistov 1966, p. 200. does not occur after non-palatalized consonants, only after their palatalized ("soft") counterparts. and do not fully contrast after phonemically palatalized or non-palatalized consonants. Similar to , does not occur after non-palatalized consonants either, only after their palatalized counterparts. After palatalized consonants, occurs at the end of words, and when followed by another palatalized consonant. after palatalized consonants occurs only before non-palatalized consonants, i.e. in the environment . The mid vowels' occurrence varies by the position within the word: In native words, are rare in the second syllable, but common in borrowings from e.g. Russian. are never found in the third and following syllables, where only occurs. at the end of words is only found in one-syllable words (e.g. ве "night", пе "end"). In longer words, word-final always stands for (e.g. веле "village", пильге "foot, leg").Feoktistov 1966, p. 200–201.
Unstressed and are slightly reduced and shortened and respectively.
Consonants There are 33 consonants in Moksha.
Labial Alveolar Post-alveolar Palatal Velar plain palat. Nasal Stop Affricate Fricative~ Approximant Trill
is realized as a sibilant before the plural suffix in south-east dialects.Feoktistov 1966, p. 220.
Palatalization, characteristic of Uralic languages, is contrastive only for dental consonants, which can be either "soft" or " hard". In Moksha Cyrillic alphabet the palatalization is designated like in Russian: either by a "soft sign" after a "soft" consonant or by writing "soft" vowels after a "soft" consonant. In scientific transliteration the acute accent or apostrophe are used.
All other consonants have palatalized allophones before the front vowels as well. The alveolo-palatal affricate lacks non-palatalized counterpart, while postalveolar fricatives lack palatalized counterparts.
Devoicing Unusually for a Uralic language, there is also a series of voiceless liquid consonants: . These have arisen from Proto-Mordvinic consonant clusters of a sonorant followed by a voiceless stop or affricate: .
Before certain inflectional and derivational endings, devoicing continues to exist as a phonological process in Moksha. This affects all other voiced consonants as well, including the nasal consonants and semivowels. No voiceless nasals are however found in Moksha: the devoicing of nasals produces voiceless oral stops. Altogether the following devoicing processes apply:
Plain Devoiced
For example, before the nominative plural : кал "fish" – калхт "fish" лем "name" – лепть "names" марь "apple" – марьхть "apples" Devoicing is, however, morphological rather than phonological, due to the loss of earlier voiceless stops from some consonant clusters, and due to the creation of new consonant clusters of voiced liquid + voiceless stop. Compare the following oppositions: калне "little fish" – калхне (< ) "these fish" марьне "my apples" – марьхне ( < ) "these apples" кундайне "I caught it" – кундайхне ( < ) "these catchers"
Stress Non-high vowels are inherently longer than high vowels and tend to draw the stress. If a high vowel appears in the first syllable which follow the syllable with non-high vowels (especially and ), then the stress moves to that second or third syllable. If all the vowels of a word are either non-high or high, then the stress falls on the first syllable.
Stressed vowels are longer than unstressed ones in the same position like in Russian. Unstressed vowels undergo some degree of vowel reduction.
Writing systems
Moksha has been written using Cyrillic with spelling rules identical to those of Russian since the 18th century. As a consequence of that, the vowels are not differentiated in a straightforward way. However, they can be (more or less) predicted from Moksha phonotactics. The 1993 spelling reform defines that in the first (either stressed or unstressed) syllable must be written with the "hard" sign (e.g. мъ́рдсемс mə́rdśəms "to return", formerly мрдсемс). The version of the Moksha Cyrillic alphabet used in 1924-1927 had several extra letters, either digraphs or single letters with diacritics.Omniglot.com page on the Moksha language Although the use of the Latin script for Moksha was officially approved by the CIK VCKNA (General Executive Committee of the All Union New Alphabet Central Committee) on June 25, 1932, it was never implemented. +From letters to soundsАаБбВвГгДдЕеЁёЖжЗзИиЙйКкЛлМмНнОо ,,,,,abvgdˊe,je,ˊä,ˊəˊo,jožzijklmno,əПпРрСсТтУуФфХхЦцЧчШшЩщЪъЫыЬьЭэЮюЯя,,,,prstufχcčšščəi͔ˊe,äˊu,juˊa,ˊä,ja +From sounds to lettersаяяэя,ебвгддьэеееёёжззьиыйклльлхльхaˊajaäˊäbvgdd́eˊejeˊəˊojožzźii͔jklľʟʟ́мнопррьрхрьхссьттьуююфхццьчшщо,ъ,*a,*и*mnoprŕʀʀ́sśtt́uˊujufχcćčšščə
Grammar
Morphosyntax Like other Uralic languages, Moksha is an agglutinating language with elaborate systems of case-marking and conjugation, postpositions, no grammatical gender, and no articles.
Case Moksha has 13 productive cases, many of which are primarily locative cases. Locative cases in Moksha express ideas that Indo-European languages such as English normally code by prepositions (in, at, towards, on, etc.).
However, also similarly to Indo-European prepositions, many of the uses of locative cases convey ideas other than simple motion or location. These include such expressions of time (e.g. on the table/Monday, in Europe/a few hours, by the river/the end of the summer, etc. ), purpose (to China/keep things simple), or beneficiary relations. Some of the functions of Moksha cases are listed below:
Nominative, used for subjects, predicatives and for other grammatical functions. Genitive, used to code possession. Allative, used to express the motion onto a point. Elative, used to code motion out of a place. Inessive, used to code a stationary state, in a place. Ablative, used to code motion away from a point or a point of origin. Illative, used to code motion into a place. Translative, used to express a change into a state. Prolative, used to express the idea of "by way" or "via" an action or instrument. Lative, used to code motion towards a place.
There is controversy about the status of the three remaining cases in Moksha. Some researchers see the following three cases as borderline derivational affixes.
Comparative, used to express a likeness to something. Caritive (or abessive), used to code the absence of something. Causal, used to express that an entity is the cause of something else.
Case functionCase NameSuffixVowel stem Plain consonant stem Palatalized consonant stem landhousetownGrammaticalNominative-Øa landa housea townGenitiveof a land, a land'sof a house, a house'sof a town, a town'sLocativeAllativeonto a landonto a houseonto a townElativeout of a landout of a houseout of a townInessivein a landin a housein a townAblativefrom a landfrom the housefrom the townIllativeinto a landinto a houseinto a townProlativethrough/alongside a landthrough/alongside a housethrough/alongside a townLativetowards a landtowards a housetowards a townOtherTranslativebecoming/as a landbecoming/as a housebecoming a town, as a townComparativesize of a land, land sizesize of a house, house sizesize of a town, town sizeCaritivewithout a land, landlesswithout a house, houselesswithout a town, townlessCausalbecause of a landbecause of a housebecause of a town
Relationships between locative cases As in other Uralic languages, locative cases in Moksha can be classified according to three criteria: the spatial position (interior, surface, or exterior), the motion status (stationary or moving), and within the latter, the direction of the movement (approaching or departing). The table below shows these relationships schematically: