The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Mordvins

MORDVINS, a people inhabiting eastern Russia. They form a subdivision of the Bulgaric or Volgaic family of the Finnic branch of the Turanian, Uralo-Altaic, or Mongolian races, and are related to the Tcheremisses and Tchuvashes. (See Finns.) Their number has been estimated at 400,000, and their territory lies principally between the rivers Oka and Volga in the Russian governments of Nizhni Novgorod, Tambov, Pensa, Simbirsk, and Saratov, extending also into Samara and Astrakhan. Dialectically they may be subdivided into Mokzhas, chiefly dwelling on the banks of the Sura and Mokzha, and Ersas, occupying the shores of the Oka.—See Ahlquist, Mokscha-mordwinische Grammatik (St. Petersburg, 1871).