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Mari und Mordwinen im heutigen Ruland:Sprache, Kultur, Identitt

Alan R. Libert

To cite this article:Alan R. Libert (2015) Mari und Mordwinen im heutigen Ruland: Sprache,

Kultur, Identitt, WORD, 61:1, 87-88, DOI: 10.1080/00437956.2015.1006856

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BOOK REVIEW

EUGEN HELIMSKY, ULRIKE KAHRS AND MONIKA SCHTSCHEL, eds., Mariund Mordwinen im heutigen Ruland: Sprache, Kultur, Identitt. (Verffentlichungen derSocietas Uralo-Altaica, 66.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005. xxiv + 563 pp.

This book is about two Uralic peoples of Russia and their languages. It has three parts: aGeneral part (with two papers), followed by a part containing linguistic contributions,and then a part dealing with culture. I shall only discuss the linguistic part. However, onemight note that religion and mythology are treated in a fair proportion of the papers in thethird part, e.g. in Sacred groves and their meaning for the rebirth of Mari religion byVladimir Kudrjavcev.

Michail Mosins paper, Bilingualism and ethnic identity in the Mordvin Republicpresents a (depressingly familiar) situation of one-sided bilingualismin which speakersof Mordvin languages also know Russian, but Russian speakers do not know the Mordvinlanguages, which are clearly threatened. His proposed solution involves the formation ofa single standard language from the two Mordvin languages (Erzja and Moksha). Thisposition is also held by Gbor Zaicz (Current questions of the development of theMordvin written languages). Although he is writing about Mordvin, he cites (55) somedistressing examples of intolerance in the Mari Republic, including the following: a buspassenger says, These Mari are really shameless, speaking their language in a publicplace. It should be pointed out that according to at least some scholars, including Zaicz,

the existence of two Mordvin languages is

artificial

(59) and is based on a politicalfactor (the divide and rule policy which was applied to various areas of the Soviet Union).Zaicz makes some suggestions about a unified standard language.

In Language use and attitude towards their own language among the Mordvin today(an empirical study) Veronika Kampf discusses results from a survey of speakers ofdifferent types both within and outside of the Mordvin Republic. Questions on languageuse included which languages were used with different types of family members (e.g.grandparents, siblings), and which languages were written and read, and listened to on theradio and television. A result that is quite worrying is that members of the intelligentsiaspeak to their children either exclusively or mainly in Russian. Although, as we haveseen, some scholars advocate the creation of a single standard Mordvin language, one ofthe results of the part of the survey on language attitudes is that members of theintelligentsia disagree with this, as, in general, do inhabitants of the villages involved inthe survey.

Merja Salos paper, The status of Mordvin and Mari in the school curriculum,contains some more information that might lead one to be concerned about the future ofminority languages in Russia. For example, although after the fall of the Soviet Unionthere were some signs of an improvement in the situation of Mari with respect toeducation, now in the Republic of Mari El, according to Salo, the official attitude to theMari language is extremely negative; efforts are being made to drive it back into thehome (112).

More bad news is given in Multi- and monolingualism in Eastern Mari villagecommunitiesby Seppo Lallukka, which presents data on rural Mari outside of Mari El.

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Language is a major part of Mari identity: Lalluka states, Our survey of Eastern Maridemonstrates that language presents the ethnic marker that by far surpasses all others inimportance (156). However, due to the fact that, unlike knowledge of Russian,knowledge of Mari does not give one a significant advantage for such purposes asfinding work, many of the young Mari, and even their parents, have increasingly cometo view their native language as unnecessary, and even useless(168).

A language which is not mentioned in the title of the book receives attention in JormaLuutonens paper About the development of the social position of the Mari and Chuvashlanguages. As discussed in this paper, Chuvash, a Turkic language, has at times faredbetter than Mari in Russia and the Soviet Union. However, one should be concernedabout its future (as well as that of Mari), given, for example, the fact that more educatedand urban Chuvash parents predominantly speak Russian with their children (145).

The papers that I have mentioned so far are largely of a sociolinguistic nature. Someother papers in the book are more linguistically oriented, as they are concerned withdetails of languages, for example, Margarita Kuznecovas Current developmental

tendencies of the Cheremis vocabulary (Cheremisbeing another name for Mari). Thispaper deals with words occurring in I. IvanovsDictionary of new wordsin Mari (Ivanov2001). Also on lexical matters are The significance of rare and forgotten words for thedevelopment of the vocabulary of the modern Mari standard languageby Oleg Sergeevand The distribution of neologisms in Mari: results of a survey by Monika Schtsel.Sirkka Saarinen writes about The borrowed word formation suffixes in the East and WestMari written languages; the suffixes in question come from Turkic languages.

The last paper of the linguistic section of the book is The origin and development ofthe Mordvin written languages in their local variantsby Aleksandr Feoktistov.

For me, the more interesting papers are the sociolinguistic ones. Although it may be

troubling to read about the problems which the Mordvin and Mari languages have facedand are facing, one should know about such problems if one is going to attempt tosave these languages. The situations described by these papers do not lead one to beoptimistic, but at least some work is going on which may assist the survival ofthe languages. Perhaps a similar collection of papers published 50 years from now will beable to give a brighter picture.

ALAN R. LIBERTSchool of Humanities and Social Science,

University of Newcastle, UK

2015, Alan R. Liberthttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00437956.2015.1006856

REFERENCE

Ivanov, I. 2001. Mutvundynam pojdarena. U mut-vlak muter[We enrich the vocabulary: dictionaryof new words]. Joskar-Ola: Marij kniga savyktys.

88 Book review

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00437956.2015.1006856http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00437956.2015.1006856