Erzya people
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 843,350 (2002) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Mordovia, Ryazan Oblast, Tatarstan, Ulyanovsk Oblast, Samara Oblast | |
| Languages | |
| Erzya, Moksha, Russian, (Tatar spoken by the Qaratay sub group) | |
| Religion | |
| Predominantly † Orthodox Christianity (Russian Orthodox Church) also Mordvin Native Religion also Lutheranism, Molokans and Jumpers |
|
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Mari; other Finnic peoples |
The Mordvins, also Mordva, Mordvinians, Mordovians (Erzya: эрзят/erźat, Moksha: мокшет/mokšet, Tatar: мухшилар/muxşilar, Russian: мордва/mordva; for Qaratai: Russian: каратаи/karatayi), are the members of a people who speak a Mordvinic language of the Uralic language family and live mainly in the Republic of Mordovia and other parts of the middle Volga River region of Russia.
The Mordvins are one of the larger indigenous peoples of Russia. They identify themselves as separate ethnic groups: the Erzya and Moksha, besides the smaller subgroups of the Qaratay, Teryukhan and Tengushev (or Shoksha) Mordvins who have become fully Russified or Turkified during the 19th to 20th centuries. Less than one third of Mordvins live in the autonomous republic of Mordovia; the rest are scattered over the Russian oblasts of Samara, Penza, Orenburg and Nizhny Novgorod, as well as Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Bashkortostan, Central Asia, Siberia, Far East, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia and the United States.
...
Wikipedia