Mordviniann.adj.

1879 Encycl. Brit. VIII. 700/1 Finnic or Ugrian represented by..Mordvinian.

1960 E. R. Goodman Soviet Design for World State ix. 275 Examining any one of the languages of the Soviet Union, e.g., Mordvinian, one is shocked by the discovery that it swarms with Russian words.

1987 D. Crystal Cambr. Encycl. Lang. xii. 74/1 Sometimes only the number of syllables in a unit is critical, regardless of their pitch, loudness, or duration, as in Mordvinian.

1883 Encycl. Brit. XVI. 45/2 Even now part of the Mordvinians (of Finnish origin) call themselves Meschers.

1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 976/2 Androphagi (Gr. for ‘man-eaters’), an ancient nation of cannibals north of Scythia (Herodotus iv. 18, 106), probably in the forests between the upper waters of the Dnieper and Don. They were most likely Finns (Samoyed has the same meaning) and perhaps the ancestors of the Mordvinians.

1972 E. G. Lewis Multilingualism in Soviet Union 1. 25 Examples of nationalities that are being assimilated are the Mordvinians (-22,000), the Karelians (-21,000), [etc.].

1986 R. Karklins Ethnic Relations in USSR i. 35 Some mention was also made of Mordvinians and Udmurts.

1879 Encycl. Brit. IX. 219/2 The Volga Finns include..the Mordvinian, divided into small communities on both banks of the Volga.

1898 R. Brown Semitic Infl. Hellenic Mythol. iii. iii. 89 Chaïtan (= Arabic Shaitan, Heb. Satan) appears in the Mordvinian Pantheon.

1960 E. R. Goodman Soviet Design for World State ix. 275 One is shocked by the discovery that it [sc. Mordvinian] swarms with Russian words, and that only the suffixes are Mordvinian.

1975 K. Katzner Langs. of World ii. 144 There are about one million speakers, about one-third of whom live in the Mordvinian A.S.S.R. with its capital at Saransk.

1986 R. Karklins Ethnic Relations in USSR 215 In one case close to 100 percent of the youngsters choose the local nationality (Turkmen), and at the other end the proportion is close to 0 percent (Mordvinian).