Volga Finns
Encyclopedia
The Volga Finns are a historical group of indigenous peoples of Russia whose descendants include the Mari people, the Erzya and the Moksha Mordvins, as well as extinct Merya, Muromian and Meshchera people. The Permians
Permians
The Permians are a branch of the Finno-Ugric peoples and include Komis and Udmurts, speakers of Permic languages. Formerly the name Bjarmians was also used to describe these peoples...

 are sometimes also grouped as Volga Finns.

The modern representatives of Volga Finns live in the basins of the Sura
Sura River
Sura is a river in Russia, a right tributary of the Volga River. It flows through Penza Oblast, Mordovia, Ulyanovsk Oblast, Chuvashia and Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. Its length is 841 km, it is navigable for 394 km from the mouth....

 and Moksha River
Moksha River
Moksha is a river in central Russia, a right tributary of the Oka River. It is 656 kilometres in length....

s, as well as (in smaller numbers) in the interfluve between the Volga and the Belaya River
Belaya River
Belaya River may refer to the following rivers in Russia:*Belaya River , a tributary of the Lake Imandra in the Murmansk Oblast*Belaya River , a tributary of the Kama River in the Republic of Bashkortostan...

s. The Mari language
Mari language
The Mari language , spoken by more than 600,000 people, belongs to the Uralic language family. It is spoken primarily in the Mari Republic of the Russian Federation as well as in the area along the Vyatka river basin and eastwards to the Urals...

 has two dialects, the Meadow Mari and the Hill Mari.

Traditionally the Mari and the Mordvinic languages
Mordvinic languages
The Mordvinic languages, alternatively Mordvin languages, or Mordvinian languages, are a subgroup of the Uralic languages, comprising the closely related Erzya language and Moksha language.Previously considered a single "Mordvin language",...

 (Erzya
Erzya language
The Erzya language is spoken by about 500,000 people in the northern and eastern and north-western parts of the Republic of Mordovia and adjacent regions of Nizhniy Novgorod, Chuvashia, Penza, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in Russia...

 and Moksha
Moksha language
The Moksha language is a member of the Finno-Volgaic subdivision of the Uralic languages with about 500,000 native speakers. Moksha is the majority language in the western part of Mordovia....

) were forming a Volga–Finnic or Volgaic group within the Finno-Permic
Finno-Permic languages
The Finno-Permic languages are a traditional but disputed ,group of the Uralic languages that comprises the Baltic-Finnic languages, Sami languages, Mordvinic languages, Mari language, Permic languages, and likely a number of extinct languages...

 branch of the Uralic language family, suggested by linguists like Robert Austerlitz
Robert Austerlitz
Robert Austerlitz was a noted Romanian-American linguist. Born in Bucarest, he emigrated to the United States in 1938. In June 1950, he received a Master of Arts from Columbia University, where he studied under André Martinet...

 (1968), Aurélien Sauvageot & Karl Heinrich Menges (1973), Harald Haarmann
Harald Haarmann
Harald Haarmann is a German linguist and cultural scientist who lives and works in Finland. Haarmann studied general linguistics, various philological disciplines and prehistory at the universities of Hamburg, Bonn, Coimbra and Bangor. He obtained his PhD in Bonn and his habilitation in Trier...

 (1974) and Charles Frederick Voegelin & Florence Marie Voegelin (1977), and rejected by others like Björn Collinder
Björn Collinder
Björn Collinder was a Swedish linguist. His name is sometimes spelled "Bjorn Collinder" in English-language contexts.Collinder was born in Sundsvall, Sweden....

 (1965) and Robert Thomas Harms (1974).
This grouping has also been questioned by Salminen (2002), who suggests it may be simply a geographic, not a phylogenetic
Genetic relationship (linguistics)
In linguistics, genetic relationship is the usual term for the relationship which exists between languages that are members of the same language family. The term genealogical relationship is sometimes used to avoid confusion with the unrelated use of the term in biological genetics...

, group. Since 2009 the 16th edition of Ethnologue
Ethnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...

: Languages of the World has adopted a classification grouping Mari and Mordvin languages as separate brances of the Uralic language
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...

 family.

Mari

The Mari or Cheremis ' onMouseout='HidePop("20854")' href="/topics/Tatar_language">Tatar
Tatar language
The Tatar language , or more specifically Kazan Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars of historical Kazan Khanate, including modern Tatarstan and Bashkiria...

 Çirmeş) have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama
Kama River
Kama is a major river in Russia, the longest left tributary of the Volga and the largest one in discharge; in fact, it is larger than the Volga before junction....

 rivers in Russia. The majority of Maris today live in the Mari El
Mari El
The Mari El Republic is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Yoshkar-Ola. Population: -Geography:The republic is located in the eastern part of the East European Plain of Russia, along the Volga River. The swampy Mari Depression is located in the west of the republic...

 Republic, with significant populations in the Tatarstan
Tatarstan
The Republic of Tatarstan is a federal subject of Russia located in the Volga Federal District. Its capital is the city of Kazan, which is one of Russia's largest and most prosperous cities. The republic borders with Kirov, Ulyanovsk, Samara, and Orenburg Oblasts, and with the Mari El, Udmurt,...

 and Bashkortostan
Bashkortostan
The Republic of Bashkortostan , also known as Bashkiria is a federal subject of Russia . It is located between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains. Its capital is the city of Ufa...

 republics.
The Mari people consists of three different groups: the Meadow Mari, who live along the left bank of the Volga, the Mountain Mari, who live along the right bank of the Volga, and Eastern Mari, who live in the Bashkortostan republic. In the 2002 Russian census, 604,298 people identified themselves as "Mari," with 18,515 of those specifying that they were Mountain Mari and 56,119 as Eastern Mari. Almost 60% of Mari lived in rural areas.

Merya

The Merya people inhabited a territory corresponding roughly to what is now the area of the Golden Ring or Zalesye
Zalesye
Zalesye or Opolye is a historical region of Russia, comprising the north and west parts of Vladimir Oblast, the north-east of Moscow Oblast and the south of Yaroslavl Oblast. As a kernel of the medieval state of Vladimir-Suzdal, this area played a vital part in the development of Russian statehood...

 region of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

  including the modern-day Moscow
Moscow Oblast
Moscow Oblast , or Podmoskovye , is a federal subject of Russia . Its area, at , is relatively small compared to other federal subjects, but it is one of the most densely populated regions in the country and, with the 2010 population of 7,092,941, is the second most populous federal subject...

, Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl Oblast
Yaroslavl Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , which is located in the Central Federal District, surrounded by Tver, Moscow, Ivanovo, Vladimir, Kostroma, and Vologda Oblasts. This geographic location affords the oblast the advantages of proximity to Moscow and St. Petersburg...

, Kostroma
Kostroma Oblast
Kostroma Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Kostroma.Major historic towns include Kostroma, Sharya, Nerekhta, Galich, Soligalich, and Makaryev. Textile industries have been developed there since the early 18th century...

, Ivanovo
Ivanovo Oblast
Ivanovo Oblast is a federal subject of Russia .Its three largest cities are Ivanovo , Kineshma, and Shuya.The principal center of tourism is Plyos. The Volga River flows through the northern part of the oblast....

, and Vladimir
Vladimir Oblast
Vladimir Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Vladimir, which is located east of Moscow...

 oblasts.

They were briefly mentioned in the 6th century by Jordanes
Jordanes
Jordanes, also written Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th century Roman bureaucrat, who turned his hand to history later in life....

 (as Merens) and were later described in more detail by the Primary Chronicle
Primary Chronicle
The Primary Chronicle , Ruthenian Primary Chronicle or Russian Primary Chronicle, is a history of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110, originally compiled in Kiev about 1113.- Three editions :...

. Soviet archaeologists believed that the capital of the Merya was Sarskoe Gorodishche on the bank of the Nero Lake to the south of Rostov
Rostov
Rostov is a town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, one of the oldest in the country and a tourist center of the Golden Ring. It is located on the shores of Lake Nero, northeast of Moscow. Population:...

. They are thought to have been peacefully assimilated by the East Slavs
East Slavs
The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...

 after their territory became incorporated in the Kievan Rus in the 11th century.

Their unattested Merya language is assumed to have been a member of the Volga–Finnic, group. Eugene Helimski
Eugene Helimski
Eugene Arnoľdovič Helimski — a Russian linguist , Doctor of Philosophy , Professor...

 suppose that Merya language was closer to the "northwest" group of Finno-Ugric languages ​​(Balto-Finnic and Sami
Sami languages
Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently and erroneously believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami...

).

One hypothesis describes the Merya as western branch of the Mari people rather than a separate tribe. Their names are basically identical (Merya being a Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 transcription of the Mari self-name, Мäрӹ (Märӛ)).
This view has been challenged and an affiliation with the Northwestern Finnic
Finno-Lappic languages
The Finno-Lappic languages are a hypothetical subgroup of the Uralic family, and are made up of 22 languages classified into either the Sami languages , which are spoken by the Sami people who inhabit the Sápmi region of northern Fennoscandia, or Finnic languages, which include the major languages...

 languages, including Finnic and Saamic, has been explained as more likely,

Meshchera

The Meshchera lived in the territory between the Oka River
Oka River
Oka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as to the town of Kaluga. Its length exceeds...

 and the Klyazma
Klyazma River
The Klyazma River is a river in the Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Ivanovo and Vladimir Oblasts in Russia, a left tributary of the Oka River. The length of the river is 686 kilometres. The area of its drainage basin is 42,500 km². The Klyazma River freezes up in November and stays under the ice...

 river. It was a land of forests, bog
Bog
A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens....

s and lakes. The area is still called the Meshchera Lowlands
Meshchera Lowlands
Meshchera Lowlands , also referred to as simply "Meshchera"/"Meshchyora" is a spacious lowland in the middle of the European Russia. It is named after the Finno-Ugric Meshchera tribe, which used to live there...

.

The first Russian written source which mentions them is the Tolkovaya Paleya, from the 13th century. They are also mentioned in several later Russian chronicles from the period before the 16th century. This is in stark contrast to the related tribes Merya and Muroma, which appear to have been assimilated by the East Slavs
East Slavs
The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...

 by the 10th and the 11th centuries.
Ivan II
Ivan II of Russia
Ivan II Ivanovich the Fair was the Grand Prince of Moscow and Grand Prince of Vladimir in 1353. Until that date, he had ruled the towns of Ruza and Zvenigorod...

, prince of Moscow, wrote in his will, 1358, about the village Meshcherka, which he had bought from the native Meshcherian chieftain Alexander Ukovich. The village appears to have been converted to the Christian Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 faith and to have been a vassal of Muscovy.

The Meschiera (along with Mordua, Sibir, and a few other harder-to-interpret groups) are mentioned in the "Province of Russia" on the Venetian
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 Fra Mauro Map
Fra Mauro map
The Fra Mauro map, "considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography" according to Roberto Almagià, is a map made around 1450 by the Venetian monk Fra Mauro...

 (ca. 1450).

Several documents mention the Meshchera concerning the Kazan
Kazan
Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...

 campaign by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century. These accounts concern a state of Meshchera (known under a tentative name of Temnikov Meshchera, after its central town of Temnikov
Temnikov
Temnikov is a town and the administrative center of Temnikovsky District of the Republic of Mordovia, Russia. Population:...

) which had been assimilated by the Mordvins and the Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

.
Prince A. M. Kurbsky wrote that the Mordvin language was spoken in the lands of the Meshchera.
(See also: Meshcherian language.)

In the village of Zhabki (Egorievsk district, Moscow Oblast
Moscow Oblast
Moscow Oblast , or Podmoskovye , is a federal subject of Russia . Its area, at , is relatively small compared to other federal subjects, but it is one of the most densely populated regions in the country and, with the 2010 population of 7,092,941, is the second most populous federal subject...

), Meshchera burial sites were found in 1870. Women's bronze decorations identified as Finno-Ugric were found and dated to the 5th to 8th centuries. Very similar finds soon appeared in the Ryazan Oblast
Ryazan Oblast
Ryazan Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Ryazan, which is the oblast's largest city. Population: -Geography:...

 and the Vladimir Oblast
Vladimir Oblast
Vladimir Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Vladimir, which is located east of Moscow...

, enabling archaeologists to establish what characterized the material culture of the Meshchera. 12 such sites were found from the Moskva River
Moskva River
The Moskva River is a river that flows through the Moscow and Smolensk Oblasts in Russia, and is a tributary of the Oka River.-Etymology:...

, along the Oka River
Oka River
Oka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as to the town of Kaluga. Its length exceeds...

 to the town Kasimov
Kasimov
Kasimov is a town in Ryazan Oblast, Russia, which serves as the administrative center of Kasimovsky District . The town is situated on the left bank of the Oka River...

. The general opinion is nowadays, that the Oka-Ryazan culture is identical to that of the Meshchera.
The graves of women have yielded objects typical of the Volga Finns, of the 4th to 7th centuries, consisting of rings, jingling pendant
Pendant
A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, when the ensemble may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. In modern French "pendant" is the gerund form of “hanging”...

s, buckle
Buckle
The buckle or clasp is a device used for fastening two loose ends, with one end attached to it and the other held by a catch in a secure but adjustable manner. Usually overlooked and taken for granted, the invention of the buckle has been indispensable in securing two ends before the invention of...

s and torc
Torc
A torc, also spelled torq or torque, is a large, usually rigid, neck ring typically made from strands of metal twisted together. The great majority are open-ended at the front, although many seem designed for near-permanent wear and would have been difficult to remove. Smaller torcs worn around...

s. A specific feature was round breast plates with a characteristic ornamentation.
Some of the graves contained well-preserved copper oxide
Copper oxide
Copper oxide is a compound from the two elements copper and oxygen.Copper oxide may refer to:*Copper oxide , a red powder;*Copper oxide , a black powder...

s of the decorations with long black hair locked into small bells into which were woven pendants.

In the Oka river
Oka River
Oka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as to the town of Kaluga. Its length exceeds...

 valley, the Meshchera culture appears to have disappeared by the 11th century. In the marshy north, they appear to have stayed and to have been converted into the Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 faith. The Meshchera nobility appears to have been converted and assimilated by the 13th century, but the common Meshchera huntsman and fisherman may have kept elements of their language and beliefs for a longer period. In the 16th century, the St Nicholas monastery was founded in Radovitsky in order to convert the remaining Meshchera pagans. The princely family Mestchersky in Russia derives its nobility from having originally been native rulers of some of these Finnic tribes.

The Meshchera language is unattested. Some linguists means that it might have been dialect of Mordvinic
Mordvinic languages
The Mordvinic languages, alternatively Mordvin languages, or Mordvinian languages, are a subgroup of the Uralic languages, comprising the closely related Erzya language and Moksha language.Previously considered a single "Mordvin language",...

. But Pauli Rahkonen believs that toponymic evidence suggests it was a Permic
Permic languages
Permic languages are a branch of the Uralic language family. They are spoken in the foothills of the Ural Mountains of Russia.* Komi** Komi-Permyak** Komi-Yodzyak ** Komi-Zyryan...

 or closely related language. It should be noted that Rahkunen's speculations is not supported by other scientists. In particular, the Russian Uralist Vladimir Napolskikh
Vladimir Napolskikh
Vladimir Vladimirovich Napolskikh — a Russian ethnographer, ethnologist, ethnohistorian, Finno-Ugrist, linguist. Doctor of Historical Sciences , Professor at Udmurt State University. Member of the «Societas Uralo-Altaica» since 2000....

 commented on the Rahkunen's article as follows: «This is an absolute, total delirium… But a special abomination of this is that this nonsense comes in a classic journal with a century history in the year of death of A. K. Matveev
Aleksandr Matveyev
Aleksandr Konstantinovich Matveyev was a Russian linguist known for his works in toponymics , onomastics , and etymology .-Biography:...

 — the greatest scholar of Finno-Ugric toponymy».

Mordvins

The Mordvins (also Mordva, Mordvinians) remain one of the larger indigenous peoples of Russia. They consist of two major subgroups, the Erzya
Erzya
Erzya could refer to:*Erzya language, a Uralic language spoken in Russia.*Erzya Oblasts, the areas of Russian in which Erzya is spoken.*Erzya literature, literature written in the Erzya language....

and Moksha, besides the smaller subgroups of the Qaratay, Teryukhan and Tengushev (or Shoksha) Mordvins who have become fully Russified
Russification
Russification is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attributes by non-Russian communities...

 or Turkified during the 19th to 20th centuries.
Less than one third of Mordvins live in the autonomous republic of Mordovia
Mordovia
The Republic of Mordovia , also known as Mordvinia, is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Saransk. Population: -Geography:The republic is located in the eastern part of the East European Plain of Russia...

, Russian Federation, in the basin of the Volga River
Volga River
The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including the capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage...

.

The Erzya Mordvins , who speak Erzya
Erzya language
The Erzya language is spoken by about 500,000 people in the northern and eastern and north-western parts of the Republic of Mordovia and adjacent regions of Nizhniy Novgorod, Chuvashia, Penza, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in Russia...

, and the Moksha Mordvins , who speak Moksha
Moksha language
The Moksha language is a member of the Finno-Volgaic subdivision of the Uralic languages with about 500,000 native speakers. Moksha is the majority language in the western part of Mordovia....

, are the two major groups. The Qaratay Mordvins live in Kama Tamağı District of Tatarstan
Tatarstan
The Republic of Tatarstan is a federal subject of Russia located in the Volga Federal District. Its capital is the city of Kazan, which is one of Russia's largest and most prosperous cities. The republic borders with Kirov, Ulyanovsk, Samara, and Orenburg Oblasts, and with the Mari El, Udmurt,...

, and have shifted to speaking
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...

 Tatar
Tatar language
The Tatar language , or more specifically Kazan Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars of historical Kazan Khanate, including modern Tatarstan and Bashkiria...

, albeit with a large proportion of Mordvin vocabulary (substratum
Substratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...

). The Teryukhan, living in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Nizhny Novgorod. Population: The oblast is crossed by the Volga River. Apart from Nizhny Novgorod's metropolitan area, the biggest city is Arzamas...

 of Russia, switched to Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 in the 19th century. The Teryukhans recognize the term Mordva as pertaining to themselves, whereas the Qaratay also call themselves Muksha. The Tengushev Mordvins live in southern Mordovia and are a transitional group between Moksha and Erzya.
The western Erzyans are also called Shoksha (or Shoksho). They are isolated from the bulk of the Erzyans, and their dialect/language has been influenced by the Mokshan dialects.

Muroma

The Muromians lived in the Oka River
Oka River
Oka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as to the town of Kaluga. Its length exceeds...

 basin. They are mentioned in the Primary Chronicle
Primary Chronicle
The Primary Chronicle , Ruthenian Primary Chronicle or Russian Primary Chronicle, is a history of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110, originally compiled in Kiev about 1113.- Three editions :...

. The old town of Murom
Murom
Murom is a historic city in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, which sprawls along the left bank of Oka River. Population: -History:In the 9th century CE, the city marked the easternmost settlement of the Eastern Slavs in the land of the Finno-Ugric people called Muromians. The Russian Primary Chronicle...

 still bears their name. The Muromians paid tribute to the Rus
Rus' (people)
The Rus' were a group of Varangians . According to the Primary Chronicle of Rus, compiled in about 1113 AD, the Rus had relocated from the Baltic region , first to Northeastern Europe, creating an early polity which finally came under the leadership of Rurik...

 princes and, like the neighbouring Merya tribe, were assimilated
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...

 by the East Slavs
East Slavs
The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...

  in the 11th to 12th century as their territory was incorporated into th Kievan Rus.

Their Muromian language is unattested, but is assumed to have been an member of the Uralic
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...

 group, likely of the Volga–Finnic subgroup. A. K. Matveyev
Aleksandr Matveyev
Aleksandr Konstantinovich Matveyev was a Russian linguist known for his works in toponymics , onomastics , and etymology .-Biography:...

 identified the toponimic area upon Lower Oka
Oka
Oka or OKA may refer to:* Oka , a Canadian cheese* Oka , an Ottoman unit of weight equal to 1.2829 kilograms* Oca or Oca, the root vegetable Oxalis tuberosa* MXY-7 Ohka , a Japanese kamikaze aircraft in World War II...

 and Lower Klyazma
Klyazma
Klyazma may refer to:* Klyazma River in central Russia* Klyazma Reservoir in central Russia...

, which corresponds with Muroma. According to the toponymy, Muroma language was close to the Merya language.

Permians

The speakers of Permic languages
Permic languages
Permic languages are a branch of the Uralic language family. They are spoken in the foothills of the Ural Mountains of Russia.* Komi** Komi-Permyak** Komi-Yodzyak ** Komi-Zyryan...

, the Permians
Permians
The Permians are a branch of the Finno-Ugric peoples and include Komis and Udmurts, speakers of Permic languages. Formerly the name Bjarmians was also used to describe these peoples...

, are sometimes considered belonging to the Volga Finnic group of peoples because according to some theories their ancient homeland lies in the Northern part of the Volga River
Volga River
The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including the capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage...

basin.

External links

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