MORDVIN LANGUAGE

member of the Finno-Ugric group of the Uralic language family, spoken in Mordvinia and neighbouring areas. The third largest Uralic language in number of speakers, ranking after Hungarian and Finnish, it has two major dialects: Erzya, spoken in the eastern portion of Mordvinia and the surrounding territory; and Moksha, spoken in the west. Although both dialects are currently written and have official status, the Mordvin lack a common name for their language. Mordvin is most closely related to the Mari language, with which it makes up the Volga-Finnic subgroup of the Finnic languages of Finno-Ugric.