Mordovia in the context of "Volga-Ural region"

The Erzya language (эрзянь кель, eŕźań keĺ, pronounced [ˈerʲzʲanʲ ˈkʲelʲ]), also Erzian or historically Arisa, is spoken by approximately 300,000 people in the northern, eastern and north-western parts of the Republic of Mordovia and adjacent regions of Nizhny Novgorod, Chuvashia, Penza, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in Russia. A diaspora can also be found in Armenia and Estonia, as well as in Kazakhstan and other 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 a language that is closely related to Moksha but has distinct phonetics, morphology and vocabulary.

Moksha (мокшень кяль, mokšəń käĺ, pronounced ['mɔkʃənʲ kælʲ]) 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.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.

The Finnic peoples, or simply Finns, are the nations who speak languages traditionally classified in the Finnic language family, and which are thought to have originated in the region of the Volga River. Currently, the largest Finnic peoples by population are the Finns (6 million), the Estonians (1 million), the Mordvins (800,000), the Mari (570,000), the Udmurts (550,000), the Komis (330,000) and the Sámi (100,000).

The scope of the term "Finnic peoples" (or "Finns") varies by context. It can be as narrow as the Baltic Finns of Finland, Scandinavia, Estonia, and Northwest Russia. In Russian academic literature, the term typically comprises the Baltic Finns and the Volga Finns, the indigenous peoples living near the Volga and Kama Rivers; the Perm Finns are sometimes distinguished as a third group. These eastern groups include the Finnic peoples of the Komi-Permyak Okrug and the four Russian republics of Komi, Mari El, Mordovia and Udmurtia. The broadest sense in the contemporary usage includes the Sámi of northern Fennoscandia as well. In older literature, the term sometimes includes the Ugrian Finns (the Khanty, Mansi and Hungarians), and thus all speakers of Finno-Ugric languages.Based on linguistic connections, the Finnic peoples are sometimes subsumed under Uralic-speaking peoples, uniting them also with the Samoyeds. The linguistic connections to the Hungarians and Samoyeds were discovered between the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.

The Khanate of Kazan was a Tatar state that occupied the territory of the former Volga Bulgaria between 1438 and 1552. The khanate covered contemporary Tatarstan, Mari El, Chuvashia, Mordovia, and parts of Udmurtia and Bashkortostan; its capital was the city of Kazan. It was one of the successor states of the Golden Horde (Mongol state), and it came to an end when it was conquered by the Tsardom of Russia.
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Saransk (UK: /səˈrænsk/, US: /sɑːˈrɑːnsk/) is the capital city of Mordovia, Russia, as well as its financial and economic centre. It is located in the Volga basin at the confluence of the Saranka and Insar Rivers, about 630 kilometers (390 mi) east of Moscow. Saransk was one of the host cities of the official tournament of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

The Mordvinic languages, also known as the Mordvin, Mordovian or Mordvinian languages (Russian: мордовские языки, mordovskiye yazyki),are a subgroup of the Uralic languages, comprising the closely related Erzya language and Moksha language, both spoken in Mordovia.

Previously considered a single "Mordvin language",it is now treated as a small language grouping. Due to differences in phonology, lexicon, and grammar, Erzya and Moksha are not mutually intelligible. The two Mordvinic languages also have separate literary forms. The Erzya literary language was created in 1922 and the Mokshan in 1923.

The Mokshas (also Mokshans, Moksha people; Moksha: Мокшет/Mokšet) comprise a Mordvinian ethnic group belonging to the Volgaic branch of the Finno-Ugric peoples. They live in Russia, mostly near the Volga and Moksha rivers, a tributary of the Oka River.

Their native language is Mokshan, one of the two surviving members of the Mordvinic branch of the Uralic language family. According to a 1994 Russian census, 49% of the autochthonal Finnic population in Mordovia identified themselves as Mokshas, totaling more than 180,000 people. Most Mokshas belong to the Russian Orthodox Church; other religions practised by Mokshas include Lutheranism and paganism.